Battle of Reach
by Cossacks250
Summary: Follow the story of taskforce member Marcus when the Covenant invade Reach. Set just before and during the early chapters of Combat Evolved. Some OC's.
1. Prologue

**Note: I do not own Halo or Wall.E**

**Date: January 15****th****, 2552**

**Location: Rodum, Takra, Niobe Aino system. **

Rodum was Takra's greatest city, It's size was twice that of the state of Rhode Island of the United States on Earth and It's population was over 20 million. This city was matched by only a handful of other metropolis', mainly New York City, which was why Rodum had been nicknamed as 'Niobe's New York' because of It's comparison in size and population to one of Earth's largest cities. Rodum was very similar to New York City too. It seemed to be made up only of skyscrapers, each one towering thousands of feet tall, average being about 2,000ft, and had a major port, both for ships and transports. What really made it similar to New York City was that it was built around a large lake and in the centre of that lake was a small island with a titanium statue of the now long gone colony ship _Novus Initium_, meaning 'New Beginning' in Latin. It had landed here just over two centuries ago and had started Rodum out as a small growing city. Now if someone from that landing ship was to travel through time and see Rodum as one of Man's biggest cities and the biggest in the Niobe Aino system, it would be mind boggling.

Rodum, however, was well known for something else as well. It was where many UNSC military bases and BnL scientific research centres were located, making it one of the most highly concentrated UNSC presence locations in the entire Human empire that spread out across many world. It was estimated that about 250 million UNSC military personal were based here with about 100 ships. To add to the city's military personal concentration, about four UNSC orbital space defence platforms were placed above the city, so many over one city was mainly because of the size of it. It truly was a fortress that looked absolutely impregnable, as if no one or nothing, no matter what in size or strength could take the city.

At least, that was what was believed. It was unimaginable to think that this great metropolis could be destroyed. Unfortunately, that thought, deemed unimaginable, unthinkable, even absolutely impossible, had become a reality, and it was happening now in the form of a battle that had been raging furiously for the past two weeks.

Large swathes of Rodum were burning, turning the sky black with smoke and a golden orange/red colour from the glow of the fires burning across the city, overwhelming it like a tidal wave. It was a sunny afternoon across other areas of the planet, but for Rodum it had been enduring a long and deadly night for two weeks, two very long weeks. All buildings from small apartments or houses in the bottom districts of the city to hotels, luxury apartments and viewing platforms and night clubs of the higher districts were part of this fire, fuelling It's power for it to continue It's path of destruction. Explosions filled the sky and ground as large shapes passed overhead. These were large craft with two huge spires sticking out of the bottom of the front of the craft, three huge engines at the back and a purple/silver top with a curved front. They were CCS battle cruisers, about six of them, and they belonged to Man's greatest enemy: The Covenant.

The Covenant were a collection of alien races known as Grunts, Jackals, Elites, Hunters, Drones, Brutes and Prophets, who were the most rare of the Covenant and were, thereby, their leaders. Humanity had come into contact with the Covenant about ten months ago on March 3rd ,2551, and it was a day that Humanity would never forget.

Now, ten months later, the Covenant, with their superior technology and overwhelming numbers, had smashed their way across the Niobe Aino system, slaughtering and killing at will, and just three weeks ago had invaded Takra, the most populous Human world in the system, which is why it was dubbed 'New Earth', and had fought their way through most of the planet's major cities, killing millions of civilians and UNSC military personal and forcing billions more to flee to the safety of the first Sol, the home system of Humanity which the Covenant did not know of, but many were thinking, and probably even knew that it was only a matter of time until the Covenant did find the first Sol and finish Humanity and end this bloody war.

For Humanity, they were on a life line that was, for now, hidden from the Covenant, but this was a war they were losing, and it would take a miracle to save them from destruction.

Every few moments, the CCS battle cruisers would fire purple lasers down onto the city, creating more death and destruction on the ground below. This was the Covenant's favourite tactic, and the one Humanity feared most, in destroying their enemies. After wiping out any space defences and planetary defences that could threaten their craft, the Covenant ships would fire high energy deadly lasers onto the planet's surface, turning It's surface to glass, hence giving this tactic the nickname 'glassing', and rendering it uninhabitable. Many worlds Humanity had colonized had suffered this fate and Takra, which was going through this fate on an enormous scale at the moment, was not going to be the last.

In the Gontinur district, part of the centre of Rodum, there were many walkways going from one building to another, allowing the city inhabitants and visitors to take quick and easy shortcuts rather than having to go to ground and enter another building. Attached along the sides of most of the Gontinur district skyscrapers were sky trains rails, a surface equivalent of a subway system, which would stop at several platforms also attached to the sides of the buildings to take or drop off people to and from different locations around the city.

On one of these platforms, a group of four UNSC marines, all armed with battle rifles, ran out of one of the blown open doorways on the one hundred and twenty fifth floor of one of the districts skyscrapers. Smoke poured out of the doorway after the soldiers as if it were trying to catch them and prevent them from leaving. A loud echoing boom erupted from far below at the street and one of the soldiers ran over to the edge of the platform and looked down. A few large shapes moved about on the street well over a thousand feet below. One of them fired a green laser from It's front at the bottom of one of the neighbouring skyscrapers further down the street, causing an enormous explosion that slightly rocked the platform.

"My God," the soldier gasped as he watched a great fire erupt from the base of the building.

"Delta 406, this is Bravo squad 30 on the _Mitsunari _complex's one hundred and twenty fifth platform requesting evac, over," another of the soldiers said into his radio attached to his uniform's chest.

"_Bravo 30, this is Delta 406 en route to your location. ETA five minutes,"_

The soldier who was over at the side of the platform turned and walked back over to his squad members.

"Covenant are tearing the city apart down there," he said.

"Thank God that's not where we are," the soldier who had spoken into the radio replied.

"What about the ones chasing us?" the third soldier asked. "They got James on the ninety second floor and were still chasing us,"

"Well we lost 'em on the one hundredth floor," the first soldier replied. "Marcus, you see anything behind us as we got past the hundredth floor? Marcus?"

The three soldiers looked back at their comrade, who was looking through the blown out doorway into the building as if he could see through the smoke that was pouring out of the building. He was a heavily built soldier with short black hair and blue eyes. He was about twenty five years old and had been born in New Milboar just a few hundred miles away to the south down the Milboar highway. He had been in the UNSC for four years and had seen a bit of action, but the past ten months had been the only thing that seemed to exist to him. He had fought on many of Humanity's colonized worlds like Vorgra, Lupo, Eucia I and II and on Takra in his birthplace New Milboar and now here in Rodum.

"Marcus," the first soldier repeated, making him turn. "You see anything chase us from the hundredth floor?"

"No," Marcus replied. "We lost 'em,"

"Good,"

BOOM! A blinding explosion filled the sky behind him. Shooting round to see where the noise had come from, the four stared with wide, shock filled eyes at a CCS battle cruiser firing a purple glassing laser at one of the skyscrapers a few thousand feet away in front of them, which is what created the huge explosion. The top of the skyscraper was engulfed instantly in fire, which burned away for a few moments before a loud grinding and crashing noise filled the air and the building collapsed to the ground far below.

"I hope that pelican gets here quickly," the third soldier said.

The others nodded in agreement and watched as the CCS battle cruiser past them, heading away from the district towards the city's docks where civilians were being evacuated to the island in the middle of the lake where transport ships were evacuating the civilians out of the city. Marcus sighed in defeat. Much of Rodum had been devastated by the fighting and it was obvious from the start that the city, and the planet, was lost. Like one of his friends had said to him: _'The Covenant never let a planet leave their sights once It's within them'_.

"_Bravo squad 30, this is Delta 406. Your within my sights. Let's get you guys outta here,"_

The four looked in the direction of the lake and saw a small craft approaching. A pelican, their chariot to freedom and safety.

"There they are! Kill them!"

The four shot round to see a tall figure, about eight and a half feet tall with blue armour around his arms, legs, torso, back, hands and neck. On his head was a light blue helmet, which only just revealed the four mandibles of the creature that made up It's mouth. It was minor Elite with a plasma rifle in his hand. Around him were several smaller figures that had elephant like feet, large triangular pieces of armour sticking out of their backs and had methane breather masks over their mouths. They all had orange armour and were armed with plasma pistols. They were Grunts, about four of them.

Marcus fired a burst of ammo from his battle rifle at the Covenant soldiers, hitting and killing one of the Grunts. The Elite and three remaining Grunts returned fire on the squad, hitting the third marine in the face and causing him to yell out and stagger backwards.

"JAKE! NOOO!" the first marine yelled, running over to grab his friend.

Too late. Jake fell over the edge of the platform and by the time the first marine reached where his comrade had been, he could only look in horror as he disappeared into the clouds of smoke coming from the streets far below.

At once, rage filled the marine and he shot up and fired blindly at the Covenant.

"You bastard aliens!" he shouted through anger. "I'll kill all of you!"

The marine's blind anger in firing caused the Elite to dive for cover. His three Grunt companions were less fortunate. One of them was hit and killed instantly with three bullets to the side. Another was hit in the arm and staggered behind the doorway wall, light blue blood trickling down his arm onto the floor. The third had managed to dive out of the line of fire but his arm ended up going in a pile of burning rubble. Screaming in pain, the Grunt ran around, waving his arm frantically trying to put out the fire. The Elite growled in annoyance and fired a shot from It's plasma rifle at the Grunt, hitting it in the back of the head, killing it instantly.

A few moments later, the pelican reached the platform. When it was about ten feet from the edge of it, the craft turned so the entrance to the craft was facing the marines. A machine gun was set up on the resting area of the pelican and a marine was manning it.

"Quick, get in!" he said to the three marines on the platform.

They did so, having to cover their ears as they went past the machine gun, which began firing away at the doorway. The Grunt with the bleeding arm had stuck It's head out from behind the wall and was stuck several times, causing it to yell out and flip backwards onto the floor, dead. The Elite stuck his plasma rifle out from behind the wall and fired a barrage of light blue blasts at the pelican, hoping to hit and kill the marines. Thankfully, all missed. The marine on the machine gun aimed the weapon at the wall and fired a few shots at it. They soared through the air and sliced through the wall. A loud roar erupted from inside the building and the Elite staggered out from behind the wall, clutching It's arm and side as purple blood seeped from the wounds. The marine on the machine gun fired another few shots at the creature, hitting it once in the chest, throwing the creature to the floor.

"Alright, take off!" the marine on the turret shouted to the cog pit.

The craft jolted slightly as it ascended away from the platform. Marcus reloaded another clip into his battle rifle whilst the other two marines sat down.

"I thought there were four of you guys," the marine on the turret said to them.

"Just before you reached us, we lost Jake, one of our friends," the first marine replied lowly. "A blast got him right in the face."

"Oh," the marine on the turret paused for a moment, taking in what his comrade had just told him. "Sorry, man,"

"It's ok-"

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Marcus was thrown onto the pelican's floor, blood coming from his side and the side of his head. The two marine sitting on the seats, rushed to his aid, grabbing him and putting him on the seats. The marine on the turret looked back down at the doorway to see the Elite, only just alive and managing to stand, try and raised his plasma rifle again. The marine fired a few shots from the turret at the creature, hitting him in the chest, throwing it to the floor. He fired another few shots at the body, just to finish it off. The pelican then flew off in the direction of the lake, making sure it kept far away from the CCS battle cruiser.

"Is he alright?" the marine on the turret asked as he turned to his wounded comrade.

Blood was still pouring from Marcus' side and head. One of the marines tending to him had pulled up a medical box and taken a few cloths from it and was pushing down hard on the wounds to try and stop the flow of blood. The other was fumbling through the box, trying to find a morphine serum. After a few moments, he found one and injected it into Marcus' wounds and they began bandaging up his wounds. When they were done, Marcus sat up.

"You alright?" the first marine asked him.

"Y-yeah," Marcus grunted in reply, placing a hand on the side of his head.

"Oh, good," the second marine replied. "Thought you were a goner for a second then,"

"How far are we from the island?" the three heard the marine that had been on the turret, who was at the cog pit door, ask the pilot.

"Not far now, about three miles," they heard the pilot reply.

The marine in the doorway nodded and turned back to the group.

"You guys may want to get some more ammo. One of the ammo boxes is under the seats," he told them.

The two marines nodded and took out a box labelled _Ammunition _across the top and opened it, revealing several clips of ammunition for battle rifles and pistols. There were a few grenades in there as well.

Marcus turned his head and looked down at the ruins of Rodum, or what was left of it. He sighed in defeat and rested his hand on his bleeding side. This was it. Rodum was lost, and the rest of Takra would follow shortly after. Hope was the only thing left for the planet now.

The pelican entrance doors closed as it flew through a cloud of smoke coming another of the burning skyscrapers in Takra. The CCS battle cruisers continued to glass the city, spreading more death and destruction on the inhabitants and It's defenders below.


	2. A new assignment

**Two months later **

**Date: March 3****rd**

**Location: Angara city, Rhea, moon of Saturn.**

Rhea. Once an ice world, now a terra formed planet much like Earth. It had tropical islands, great mountains and beautiful oceans. Like Umeda, or what had been Umeda, it was mainly ocean and had very little land, in fact it had less than Umeda but, surprisingly, it was a popular world. At night, it had a great view of Saturn and It's amazing rings. That was what Rhea and other colonized moon around the second largest planet in the solar system were famous for, or what they had been famous for.

However, the joy and pleasure of tourists seeing the great gas giant was now replaced by fear and concern. Every night, those who lived on or visited Rhea, which was more common as the Niobe Aino system was almost all but destroyed, prayed that they would live to see the next morning and hear that their home solar system was still safe and hidden from the Covenant. They were glad it had lasted this long, but many were thinking that it was only a matter of time until the Covenant did find this solar system. It would only take one ship to take one look at a Human controlled planet here and the Covenant would be swarming this solar system en masse.

Angara city was the capitol of Rhea. Named after the river in the East of the Russia, it was ten times the size of present day Vatican City and had a population of a million and a half people and had been constructed around and on the side of a mountain. The city had started out as a small village constructed by the inhabitants of the Russian ship _Baikal _in 2435. In fact, it had not become the capitol until 2475 when the original capitol, St. William on an island in the planet's southern regions, had taken up all space on the island and the Planet Capitol Building, which is always built in the capitol city of a planet, could not be built. So, it was moved to the next nearest great city, which was Angara, and the Planet Capitol Building was built there.

The Planet Capitol Building of Angara was a cross between the Ancient Greek Parthenon and the Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem. It was a large rectangular building with concrete circular pillars at the front entrance. In the middle of the roof of the building was the enormous dome that was about twenty metres across in length and width. The building was a greyish colour and had several small entrances scattered across the roof that some workers used when they worked late at night for the view of the great neighbouring gas giant of Saturn. The building was the best place to view the planet and many people actually enjoyed staying late because, as they put it, it made them feel more relaxed, especially now when the greatest threat Humanity had ever faced was threatening to bear down upon their home system.

Inside main foyer of the building, a young man with black hair, blue eyes and a heavily built body was sitting in a hover chair. It was Marcus. He had escaped from Rodum on one of the last ships and was evacuated off Takra the next day. He had been lucky. A lot of wounded had not been as lucky, and it was the same for about 2 billion of Takra's remaining 15 billion that had been on the planet at the time of the attack on the planet. It was the most costly battle in civilian and military in the history of the UNSC, and yet many feared that many other battles that could be just as, or even more, costly were to come.

In the two months after he had been evacuated from Takra, Marcus had spent most of his time either recovering from his wounds (his side wound having almost fully healed but the wound on the side of his face had left him with a scar), listening to any news of the Covenant advance through the Niobe Aino system's remaining colonies or trying to get any news on a member of the E.R (Extra-terrestrial Reconnaissance) who was a close friend of him. Hopefully, that person was okay as he had heard the increase of several ER members in the past few weeks, especially after the conclusion of Takra.

Today, he was waiting to see some UNSC officer. Last night, he was called by a commander and told to report to the Angara Planet Capitol Building tomorrow morning. It had made Marcus curious but he could not refuse. He had to do it, but still it was strange.

"Marine Marcus," a voice said, making him look up.

A man with short blonde hair and dressed in a grey suit standing a few metres away was looking around, searching for Marcus, who stood up and walked over to him.

"Are you Marcus?" the man asked.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"Please follow me,"

The man turned and walked towards a door on the right wall of the room; Marcus followed. The door opened automatically as they approached it, revealing a large square shaped office room where several men and women dressed in smart suits were working in mall office cubicles. The walls were a grey coloured and a few windows were placed along the right wall of this room. At the end of the room ahead of Marcus and the man in the suit was a door leading with the holographic word: **Harrison **across it. Another door leading into another room was on the left wall.

The man in the suit led Marcus down the room past the cubicles to the door at the end of the room and knocked.

_"Come in,"_ a voice said from the other side.

The man in the suit opened the door to reveal a small square shaped office with a small window on the back wall with a desk in the middle of the room. A hover chair was in front of the desk and another was behind it, which a man with grey hair and dressed in an officer's uniform and looked to be in his late forties/early fifties was sitting in. Scattered across the desk were several papers, one of them the officer was scribbling something down on. The officer looked up at the two in the doorway.

"Ah good, you're here, Marcus," he said. "Thanks Michael,"

The man in the suit nodded and walked past Marcus, who stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.

"Take a seat, son," Harrison offered and Marcus obeyed and sat down in the chair. Harrison finished scribbling whatever it was down onto the paper and moved it away from him and set the pen down on the desk. "How's the scar?" he asked.

"It still hurts a little, sir, but not as much," Marcus replied.

"That's good. Now, I suppose you're wondering what you're doing here,"

"Yes, sir,"

Harrison nodded. "Well, to put it simple, Marcus. You're being reassigned to a new position,"

The news took Marcus completely by surprise. What? A-a new position?

"A-a-a new assi-assingment?" he repeated, stammering, to which Harrison nodded at.

"Yep. Marcus, you're being taken to Reach?"

"What for? Do you know what kind assignment this is, sir?"

"Not really. All I know is that It's something…well, let's just say it is quite classified. And, apparently, the reason for it being so is because, from what I've heard, it might ensure the very survival of the Human race and the defeat of the Covenant,"

Marcus went wide-eyed. Whoa, that big? Now that had really surprised him. So much so that he just stared wide-eyed ahead of him for a few seconds before Harrison cleared his throat, which brought Matthew back into reality.

"Sorry, sir," he replied. "Um…w-where exactly am I going for this new assignment, sir?" he asked.

"Reach," Harrison answered and he moved his hand under his desk and pressed something. At once, a portable computer screen hovered up from under the desk, stopping in front of Harrison, almost completely blocking him from Matthew's view, leaving only his eyes and forehead visible. "Get back to your barracks and collect your things. I'll let airbase command know you're on your way,"

Matthew nodded and stood up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. As he walked out of the building back outside, he could not help but think all about this 'new assignment'. What was it? Why was it on Reach and, more importantly, why was he being made part of it? Those were answers he could not find. Well, he would just have to wait until they revealed themselves to him, but as he walked away from the Planet Capitol Building, he could not help but think; was anyone else part of this new assignment? If there was, who, or a better question, how many? It could be a few, or several tens or a few hundred, or maybe even a few thousand, which it might be considering that this assignment was, as Harrison put it, _'Might ensure the very survival of the Human race'_

Well, he would just have to wait and see what would happen when he got to Reach.


	3. Joining the taskforce

**The next day**

The transport ship the _Skyline _was a large ship, about 300ft long and just under half as wide. It had a large rectangular main section with a curved front and a small hexagon-like shaped section connected to a small rectangular tunnel that stuck out from the top of the ship's front. That was probably the bridge. Sticking out of the sides of the back of the main rectangular section were two smaller rectangular sections with circular holes at the end of them. They were the engines. Along the sides of the main rectangular section were several small circular holes and a large rectangular hole was above them. A small hanger with a few fighters and pelicans just in case the transport ran into trouble with the Covenant and had to fight or evacuate. The ship was en route to Reach from Rhea, but had to make a stop at a space repair station for the night after a rogue asteroid hit the ship's engine, damaging it quite badly. Luckily, the engineers at the station were able to repair it and the ship resumed It's journey to Reach about an hour ago and it was almost there.

In the hanger of the ship, Marcus, with a backpack on, was sitting on a small box, looking down at a small square shaped object in his hand. It was a moving holographic image of a photo that was taken about a year ago, just a mere week before the war between Humanity and the Covenant began, on Earth. In the photo was a younger him (his black hair had been cut at the time of the photo and, obviously, he did not have the scar on the side of his face) and a woman of about twenty with short brown hair, blue eyes and had a very pretty face. He smiled a little at the photo. That woman was a friend of him, and had been for about five years, and he secretly held a romance for her. I mean, he really liked her but it was really hard for him to try and admit to her, especially her as she was caring and nice. In fact, she had been really worried about him when she heard he had been injured in Rodum in January but was relieved to know that he was okay.

Just then, a side door of the hanger opened and a young looking pilot with red hair walked in. Marcus quickly hid the object inside his uniform's chest pocket.

"Hop in the pelican, Marcus," the pilot said. "We're almost at Reach,"

Marcus nodded and stood up and walked over to a pelican that was parked nearby. He climbed into the craft and sat down on one of the resting area seats. The pilot climbed in a moment later and walked into the cog pit.

A few moments later, the craft jolted as it rose into the air. The landing gear folded themselves back up either side of the resting area entrance, which closed at the same time, momentarily blocking out all light it returned as the craft flew forward out of the hanger and into space where the light from the Niobe Aino star flooded the ship. Marcus felt the craft bank left after a few moments of flying straight and then descend. Looking through the open doorway of the cog pit, he saw their destination.

Reach, a large planet that was twice the size of Humanity's home world Earth and the last of the planets in the system to be colonized. Humanity's colonization ships _Arizona_, _Nile _and _Moresby _had arrived here in 2515. However, Reach was much different than other colonized planets. It was the main military and scientific research planet in the Niobe Aino system and that was what almost all of the people here worked for. Most of the civilians here were workers, but I mean they did have things like nightclubs and parks and small towns for the workers to sleep in but that was it. It was destined to be a civilian planet but the UNSC really needed an entire planet to construct their main scientific research and military facilities and because Reach did not have a moon, which even if it did would have been deemed too small, and because it was the very last planet available in the entire system, it was chosen. There were debates but with more people deciding to flock to Takra and Eucia, it was pretty much left in control of the UNSC for them to do what they pleased to it.

_So this is where the assignment that could ensure our survival is being carried out_ he thought as he gazed at the planet. He had only been to Reach once before and that was when he had been a worker for the UNSC, which was when he first joined, before he decided to become a marine because he did not want to be stuck on Reach forever rather than exploring the enormous expanses of space that lay out there. Like many young recruits, he had been drawn into the UNSC for the taste and thrill of adventure, which it sort of was in a way.

The pelican flew through the planet's atmosphere towards the planet. As the ground became clear, Marcus, who was still looking through the cog pit doorway, saw several mountains pass the cog pit's window view. Then, some buildings on the ground came into view, along with several warehouse and barracks-like buildings. Then, a large platform with the letters LZ came into view. At that moment, the pelican began to slow down. Marcus sighed. Well, this was it. This is where he became part of this assignment.

A moment later, he heard the landing gear unfold and the craft jolted again, indicating that they had landed. The entrance to the pelican opened and daylight flooded the craft once again. Marcus looked out through the ship's entrance and saw the side of a nearby warehouse about sixty feet away. An officer was standing on the ground next to the platform.

"Out you get buddy," the pilot said from the cog pit.

Marcus nodded. "Thanks, man," he replied and he got up and jumped down onto the platform. The officer greeted him.

"Morning, Marcus," he said as Marcus walked off the platform onto the ground.

"Morning, sir," he replied.

"Follow me," the officer turned and walked towards the warehouse nearby; Marcus followed, trying to catch up with him to ask him a few questions.

"Um, excuse me, sir. Do you know exactly what this assignment is?" he asked.

"I do, but It's best if I don't tell you out here, just in case there's anyone that hears that we don't want them to hear," the officer replied.

A small door on the side of the warehouse opened automatically as they approached it. The two walked through the doorway into the middle of a long corridor that had several doors along the left wall. The two walked right down the corridor where they came across a smaller corridor that led left to a door at the end. They walked down it, stopping about half-way down the corridor in front of a large door with a number panel on the wall next to it. The officer typed in a code and the door opened a large square shaped room with grey walls, a planet in a pot in the corner and a small holo-light hovering just below the ceiling, lighting up the room. Another small door, which led to a smaller room, was on the back wall of the room. Two more officers and a scientist with blonde hair, though it was turning grey, and dressed in a white top, black trousers and wearing a white lab coat were standing in the room.

"Ah, good. He's here," the scientist said. "Come in,"

The officer and Marcus stepped into the room. The scientist walked forward and shook Marcus' hand.

"Good day, Marcus," he said. "My name is Thomas,"

"Hi," Marcus replied.

The scientist nodded and turned towards the smaller room. "Please enter there," he said, pointing at the room. "And put on what is in there,"

Marcus nodded and walked over to the small room and entered, the door closing automatically behind him. The room was a small rectangular shape and was dimly lit by a small holo-light just below the ceiling. As Marcus took off his backpack, he noticed something hanging on the wall. He looked up.

It was a bodysuit, a green bodysuit with a chest pocket and it was a bit bulky. He walked over to it and picked up one of the sleeves in his hands. This is what they wanted him to put on? A bodysuit? It was not that it was unfashionable or stupid or anything like that but it was just…well, weird. Why a bodysuit and how was it part of this assignment?

"Are you lost in there, Marcus?" one of the officers asked from outside in an impatient voice.

He better be quick before they got really angry. He changed out of his military uniform and put on the green bodysuit. He was amazed to find that even though it looked bulky, which made it look like it was heavy; it was surprisingly light, as if he was picking up a chair with one hand. He smiled at himself. For some reason…he felt more stronger and powerful than he did when he was in his marine uniform, as if now that he was in this, nothing or no one could hurt him. It felt strange, but good as well.

He exited the room and the officers and the scientist smiled at him.

"Good , it fits," the scientist said. "How does it feel?" he asked Marcus.

"Quite good, actually," he replied. "Why are you making me wear this, though?"

"It's part of the assignment," one of the two officers that had been in the room answered.

"Is it strong?" Marcus asked.

Before he could receive an answer, one of the officers pulled out a pistol and loaded a clip into it. Marcus heard them and a look of panic spread across his face.

"Wait! Sir, what are doing with that?" he asked in a panicked voice as the officer raised the pistol at him. Marcus gasped and covered his face, waiting for the bullet to tear into him.

BANG! BANG! BANG! Three gunshots exploded in the room, each one striking Marcus on the chest. Amazingly, they did not go into his body, or even through the suit. Marcus moved his arms from in front of his face to see the bullets lying on the floor. He then went wide-eyed when a holographic meter appeared above his wrist. The bar in the meter was yellow and about half-way down the meter. Then, it rose back up the top of the meter, turning green as it did, before it disappeared. Wow, he was amazed! Really amazed!

"That strong enough for you?" the officer with the pistol asked.

Marcus smiled a little and nodded. "Yes, sir,"

"Everything is good then," the scientist piped up. He turned to the officer that had brought Marcus to the room. "Okay, take him to the others," he ordered.

"Yes, sir. Follow me, Marcus," the officer replied.

"What about my stuff?" Marcus asked, stepping back towards the changing room.

"Don't worry about that," one of the officers replied. "That'll be delivered to the barracks later. Go on,"

Marcus hesitated for a moment before he nodded and followed the officer that had brought him here back out of the room into the corridor. The door closed behind them. When it did, Marcus began to ask the officer questions again.

"So this is suit is…kind of a super suit, isn't it," he said.

"Your right there, Marcus," the officer replied. "It's made from Dorvask, a very strong material. You might not have super strength or super speed or the ability to fire lasers and stuff like Superman but It's close enough,"

Marcus nodded and looked down at himself again as if admiring the suit. "So I'm really part of an assignment of super soldiers, aren't I,"

"Yep."

"How many others are there?"

"You and sixty four others. And if you want to know why your part of this assignment, or taskforce as It's known as, It's because your tough. You survived two blast wounds that would have critically injured or even killed any other marine, Marcus. You're a survivor. And don't worry, everyone else that's part of this taskforce is kind of the same, but their also some of the best marines, pilots, medics, engineers and such we have in the UNSC,"

"Wow," was all Marcus could reply. He could not believe it. He was part of a taskforce, and one that was destined to ensure Humanity's survival. It was a big responsibility, even for him. It was even bigger than when he had been a marine.

The door ahead of the two opened as they approached it, revealing a large square shaped room where several chairs and metal crates were scattered about. There were about twenty other people, both men and women, in the room, dressed in green, red or white bodysuits. They were in groups scattered about the warehouse room. At the end of the warehouse was a doorway that led to a corridor, where another door was just visible.

"I'll leave you to get settled in," the officer said to Marcus before he walked back up the corridor. Marcus stepped into the room and the door closed behind him. A few people turned their heads in his direction to see who had entered but they quickly resumed their conversations.

Marcus walked forward a little into the room, passing a group of three women sitting in the corner of the warehouse where a few crates were. Two of them were wearing white bodysuits; the third was wearing a green bodysuit. The woman in the green bodysuit smiled at Marcus when he walked in and she got up from the crate she was sitting on.

"I'll talk to you later," she said to them before she hurried off after Marcus. When she reached him, she tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, Marcus," she said.

He turned to face her and his face broke into a smile. "Anya!" he exclaimed.

She leapt into his arms and they hugged each other tightly.

"How are you?" she asked him.

"I'm fine now," he replied. "I was worried I wasn't going to meet anyone I knew,"

Anya laughed a little and withdrew from him, her big smile still remaining on her face.

"Well, welcome to Reach," she said.

Marcus chuckled. "Thanks,"

Anya pulled him by the arm over to the side of the room where two spare crates were. Marcus took in Anya's form as she led him over to them. She was a pretty woman with short brown hair, blue eyes and she had a really beautiful face that had a small nose, skin that looked really smooth and soft cheeks. This was the same woman who was in the holographic movable photograph Marcus had in his…oh no! He left it in his chest pocket in his military uniform! Oh great! He cursed under his breath, but Anya heard him, though thankfully she did not hear exactly what he said.

"Sorry?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing!" Marcus blushed a little but it quickly faded from his face before he sat down on the crate. Anya sat down on the other crate.

"So how's the ER been lately?" he asked her. "After…what happened to Jessica?"

"We've been coping alright," she answered. "Eve's been trying to make sure we don't leave her sight. She's afraid what happened to Jessica would happen to us,"

"She's really caring isn't she," _Just like her_ Marcus thought, thinking of Anya who he believed and knew she was a very caring and very nice woman.

"Yeah she is. Then again, who wouldn't be. I mean, she treats us like we're family because…well, she's on her own in her life now,"

Marcus nodded in understanding and looked down at the ground for a moment, remembering back to when he had heard from Anya that Eve had lost her mother from a stroke just over a year ago. He had thought that her father would have looked after her, but Anya had then told her that he had died several years before her mother had. Upon hearing this, Marcus had felt really sorry for Eve. Someone losing their parents at a young age, both of Eve's being before she was even twenty years old was not something that was easy to forget. It was hard to think about, let alone talk about.

After a moment's silence between the two, Anya decided it was best to change the subject.

"So how have you been since what happened in Rodum?" she asked him.

"Not bad," Marcus replied. "The scar's been a bit painful and so was the wound on my side, but that's healed, though there wasn't really anything they could do about the scar."

Anya smiled. "I'm just glad you're okay. When I heard you got wounded, I got so scared I thought you…" she trailed off, her smile disappearing from her face for a second. "I'm sorry," she said after a few seconds.

Marcus nodded. "It's alright," he replied.

The door to the warehouse opened again and a few more people, three men and three women, two of the men in red bodysuits and the last in a green bodysuit, and the three of the women in white bodysuits. One of the women saw the two girls Anya had been with in the corner and ran over to join them.

Anya smiled. "Bethany's here," she said as she got up. "You don't mind if I go over and join them, do you?"

"No, no. You go ahead," Marcus replied as he got up. "I'll talk to you later,"

"Okay," she gave him a last hug and a smile before she rushed off to join her other three friends. Marcus smiled after her and walked over to the group of three men that had just entered. He knew someone among them. He was a former marine and had been a friend of Marcus as well.

Marcus approached the man in the green bodysuit from behind. When he reached him, he cleared his throat and said: "Glad to see me again, Eric?"

The man turned and smiled when he saw Marcus.

"Marcus!" He exclaimed, pulling his friend in to a hug and patting his back. "Oh, how you doing, man?" he asked.

"Fine," Marcus replied as he moved away from Eric. His friend had spiked up red hair and freckles and had more of an athletic body. He had been a runner for his school before he had joined the UNSC, which was where he and Marcus had met and quickly become friends.

"C'mon, let's sit down," Eric said. "Oh, by the way Marcus, this is Daniel…" he pointed to a tall man of about twenty two with blonde hair and green eyes and who was dressed in a red bodysuit. "…And this is Robert," he pointed to the man next to him, who was also in a red bodysuit, with brown hair and brown eyes. He looked to be about twenty one.

"'Sup, guys," Marcus greeted and they nodded in return.

The four then walked over to where a few chairs were set up against the wall and formed a circle with them and sat down on them.

"So, what did you guys do to get put into this taskforce?" Marcus asked them.

"Well, me being a marine and that I've managed to live long enough is one thing," Eric began "But the general said that it's because I'm strong. Not physically, but mentally. I mean, I haven't gone crazy or decided to give up all hope. Just like you, hey Marcus,"

Marcus nodded in reply and turned to Robert and Daniel. "What about you guys?"

"I'm a good pilot." Robert said. "I've done training in pelicans and hornets, so I guess that's why I'm here,"

"I got top in my sniper training class last year, so them regarding me as a good sniper is most likely why I'm here," Daniel said.

Marcus nodded. They all had their different reasons, or stories for being part of this one taskforce. As the officer had told him, it was made up of some of the best marines, pilots, engineers, medics and such in the entire UNSC, but Anya and her friends being here meant some of the ER was here as well, which did bring some relief. They were good pilots and could work their way out of fire fights if shot down, though that was only if it was a small force.

The four talked for quite a while, so long that they lost track of time. Gradually, the hall began to fill up with more people. Every now and then, Marcus glanced over at the group in the corner, which were now numbering five strong as another woman, who Marcus recognized as Emily, came in about five minutes ago. Eventually, Marcus began counting those around the room and came up with an equal of sixty four. That left one more to join them.

_Wonder who It'll be? _He mentally asked himself.

His answer came just a few moments later when the blast door to the room opened. Eric looked and nudged Marcus in the side.

"Hey Marcus, look who it is," he said.

Marcus turned away from Robert and Daniel, who were talking to each other, towards the warehouse room's entrance. Standing there was a very familiar woman with short silver hair, blue eyes and was dressed in a white bodysuit.

"It's Eve," he whispered under his breath, looking away quickly, which Eric also did, so as not to attract her attention.

However, Marcus could not help but look again, making him think he was being stupid as he was treating Eve like some undiscovered animal that was on display, and saw Anya run over to her and give her a hug. The two talked for a few moments before Anya pulled Eve by the arm over towards their group in the corner.

"I can't believe Eve's here," Marcus said to Eric.

"I know," he replied. Then, he smiled. "With her in this taskforce, we'll win. We'll definitely win,"

Marcus was about to reply when the door at the other end of the room opened and a soldier stepped in from the corridor on the other side and announced: "Alright, everyone this way," and he, Eric, Robert and Daniel joined the rest of the taskforce as they headed down the corridor towards another room at the end. When they entered the room, they saw it was another large warehouse room, though this time there was only one other ground floor door in this room and it was on the left wall and there was a walkway about twenty feet above the floor going from one door to the other built into the walls of the room.

The taskforce members piled themselves into the room. When they were all in, one of the doors on the walkway opened a man dressed in a UNSC military uniform walked out onto the walkway, stopping about half-way down it, and turned to face the taskforce members, who looked up at him.

"Good day, soldiers," he announced.

"Good day, sir," the taskforce chanted. The soldier then cleared his throat.

"I am sergeant John," he said. "I will be training you in your fight against the Covenant. Many of you may not have been in combat before. For those of you that have, you'll expect hat training to come. Training will last one month. Now, report to your barracks. Training will start later today,"

The door on the left wall, which Marcus was near, and the taskforce walked out of the room and down the corridor towards a large room on the other side of an open door at the end, which was on the left wall of a longer corridor that led left and right. The taskforce walked into the room, which was a large rectangular shape with bunk beds going along both ends to the end. At the other end of the room on the left side was a single bed. The taskforce members quickly went about choosing their beds.

Marcus walked down the left end of the room and chose the bunk bed that was third from the end of the room. He climbed onto the top bunk and sat down on it. Three women walked past him and he looked to see it was Anya, Eve and Bethany.

"I'll sleep here," he heard Eve say as she sat down on the single bed at the end.

Anya and Bethany took the bunk bed next to Marcus'.

"Start of a new life," Anya said as she climbed onto the top bunk and sat down, smiling at Marcus when she saw him and he smiled back.

"It'll be Hell when we're out there fighting the Covenant," Marcus heard Eve reply.

Marcus mentally agreed that she was right. It was going to be Hell when they were out there, especially for those who had not been in combat very often, or even at all, against the Covenant. He should be alright because he had fought against them a lot, but even now he could help but think how much of a Hell it would be when they were sent out against the Covenant.

He would just have to pray it would not be big, and for those who had not fought Humanity's enemy before.


	4. A bad experience of training

**Seven days later**

**Base 1 Holo-fight centre. **

In the past seven days since the taskforce had finally been brought together, they had undergone some hard training. Some of it was easy, especially to those who were already marines as they had undergone it before. However, there was some that was hard even for them. One example, and probably the one everyone in the taskforce feared, was the holo-fight centre built within the base.

The holo-fight centre was well known through the taskforce because it involved a taskforce member having to enter a large square arena and battle a holographic form of a Covenant soldier, whether it was a Grunt, Jackal, Elite, Hunter or a Brute. Taskforce members who had fought Grunts and Jackals had been deemed 'lucky' by their comrades because these two types were easy to defeat in hand to hand combat. Those who had already fought the Elites or even the Hunters or Brutes, it had been a different matter. Even though these were just holographic forms of the Covenant soldiers, the combat they were inflicting on the taskforce members sent to fight them was real. The Elites had thick armour as well as strength to aid them. The Brutes was pretty much the same, though more for strength than armour, and the Hunters were just the worse out of the lot. They had a huge metal sword built onto one arm that would easily break someone's back with just one swing, and it had a cannon built onto the other arm that would fire plasma balls at their enemies, which would explode with devastating effect. Plus, their size made things worse when fighting them.

Today, Marcus and a group of other taskforce soldiers were having their turn in fighting a holographic form of a Covenant soldier. Among them were two men and two women. One of the men was Eric and a new friend Marcus had made. He was called Tyler, he had blonde hair and brown eyes and was about the same height as Marcus and, also like Marcus, and he was a former marine, only he had only seen action on Tura.

The group of four taskforce soldiers entered a large room with windows at the front wall of the room, giving a clear view of a large square arena below. Below the windows, also on the front wall of the room, was a long control panel. On the left wall of the room was an elevator door, which probably led down to the arena. A tall, heavily built sergeant with a small black moustache, who was standing behind the control panel, turned to face them.

"Good day, troops," he greeted. "My name is sergeant Avery and I'll be overseeing your hand to hand combat. Head down through the elevator to the preparation room."

The four nodded and walked over to the elevator doors, which opened as they approached them. They entered the elevator, which was completely transparent in a tube-like tunnel, giving a clear view of the arena and a large rectangular-like building below them. The doors closed and the elevator jolted slightly as it descended down towards the large rectangular-like building at the bottom. When it entered the rectangular building through a small hole in the building's roof and touched down on the floor, the elevator opened and the four got out. A small computer screen attached to the right wall just above a steel door was pretty much all that was in the room.

"_Alright troops," _Avery's voice boomed all of a sudden. _"This type of training, as you may have heard, is dangerous. The aliens are only holograms, but their hand to hand combat is real. But don't worry, if you get severely injured or knocked out, then we'll halt the training. Let's see if you can do as well as Eve did two days ago. Now, any volunteers on who wants to go first?"_

The other three taskforce members stood back, leaving Marcus. He went to do the same but quickly realised the others had chosen him.

"_Good for you, Marcus! Now, head through the door into the arena,"_

Marcus sighed in annoyance and looked over his shoulder at the others.

"Thanks a lot, guys," he said to them in an annoyed voice.

"Our pleasure," Tyler replied.

Marcus rolled his eyes and walked through the now open doorway into the arena. The door closed behind him.

Marcus gazed around the arena as he walked towards the middle. It was a large square shape with a steel metal floor, about eighty metres in length and about seventy in width, and rock walls and a rock ceiling, showing it was built underground. At the four corners of the arena were steel columns that went up to the ceiling, where girders stretched across the rock from one side to the other.

_HIIIIISSSSSSSS_

Marcus jumped and looked ahead of him to see a large section of the middle of the floor descend into a huge tunnel and disappear. Marcus stepped forward cautiously to see what was going on. Then, just as he reached the edge of the hole, the section of the floor shot up back up into place, which, again, made him jump; only this time there was a tall creature standing on the section of floor.

It was a tall creature with dark blue bulky armour around It's torso, head, arms, legs, hands and feet. Just below the armoured helmet on the creature's head, he could see two pairs of mandibles. An Elite. Although it was only a minor rank, it was still dangerous nonetheless.

The Elite looked up at Marcus and, as if it recognized him as an enemy, growled and bared It's teeth and clenched It's hands into fists. It was actually quite scary to see this creature preparing to fight you. Marcus even gulped in fear, but held his position, though he was not going to deny he was not scared. Even though he had fought these creatures in the past, they had been with weapons. In fact, because neither him nor the Elite had a weapon, this was actually going to be the first time he had fought an Elite in hand to hand combat, and, because of his experience of their strength in the past, hje knew it was not going to be easy, or pretty.

_"Good luck, Marcus!" _Avery's voice boomed. _"Begin now!"_

Suddenly, the Elite charged towards Marcus and swung It's fists at him. Luckily he ducked, but before he could strike back, the Elite swung one of It's armoured arms at him, hitting him in the side of the face and throwing him to the floor. Marcus groaned in pain and placed a hand over where the arm had struck. That had hurt, a lot.

Then, the Elite grabbed Marcus by the chest with both of It's hands and pulled him to his feet and swung a punch at him, hitting him in jaw and even lifting him off the ground a few feet. Marcus fell back onto the floor with a crash, though this time it was much more painful. He had to fight back or he was dead!

The Elite growled as it stood over him and grabbed him again, though this time by the throat. However, as it went to lift him up, Marcus suddenly swung his leg into the Elite's, knocking it off balance. The Elite roared in surprise and fell on It's side. Marcus, seizing the opportunity, jumped on top of the Elite, grabbed the creature by the helmet and swung a punch at the mandibles. The Elite roared and, with a powerful attack using It's knee, struck Marcus in the back and knocked him off onto the floor.

"Argh!" Marcus grabbed his back with his hand as tears formed in his eyes. That had hurt more than when the Elite had hit him in the jaw and this move by the creature was going to make this fight a lot harder. Every time he moved, it hurt as if he was being struck with a hammer.

Another growl made him stop, only to be met with another strike to the stomach by the Elite's foot. Marcus was winded by the blow and struggled to breath for a few seconds. The Elite, however, did not stop there and it grabbed by the throat again and lifted him up above the floor, making him gasp for breath even more. The Elite bared It's teeth and lifted Marcus higher into the air. It was going to smash him into the floor! He had to do something!

Just as the Elite was about to throw him down into the floor, Marcus, who had been lifted about ten inches further above the ground, brought back his foot and swung it at the exposed stomach of the Elite. The impact must have winded the creature because it immediately let go of Marcus, causing him to fall to the ground, and placed both of It's arms around stomach and began struggling to breath. Marcus saw his chance.

He shot up from the floor, grabbed the Elite by the back of the helmet and threw it past him onto the ground. However, the Elite got up quicker than he had anticipated and lunged at Marcus, but missed as his target dived out of the way. As Marcus got up, he saw the Elite running towards him. Gasping in panic, he ran towards the rock wall, the heavy footfalls of the Elite following close behind.

What was he going to do? He could not run forever! He knew the Elite with it's faster speed would eventually catch him or out-run him and when it finally caught up with him, it would want to get him back for winding him. He had to do something, and fast!

Wait! The rectangular building! The hard side of the building could be a good advantage to him. Yes! He would use it, only if he could get to it.

Marcus suddenly turned left and ran towards the building. The Elite ran after him, picking up It's pace, which Marcus quickly realised as the footfalls of the creature were gradually getting louder. He began to sprint, but he was using up his reverse of strength, and he was going to need them for what he had in store for the Elite.

Finally, he reached the side of the building, but just as he turned to face the Elite…

WHAM! The Elite had swung a punch at Marcus just as he had turned to face him, throwing him to the floor. Marcus yelled out and placed both of his hands over his nose. Blood began to seep through the gaps between his fingers. Oh great. By the looks of it, the punch by the Elite had broken his nose!

The Elite stood over Marcus and raised It's armoured foot. Marcus went wide-eyed as he saw the threat. He shut his eyes tightly and waited for the Elite to strike down at him with It's foot.

It never did. One second passed. _What was the Elite doing? _Two seconds. _What was going on? Why had the Elite not struck, or was this a trick? _Slowly, Marcus opened one eye slightly and opened both of them in shock. The Elite was gone.

"What the…?" he said, though it was slightly muffled, but the confusion was soon overcome by the pain flaring from his nose.

Then the steel door opened and two marines ran out of the building and ran over to him.

"You alright?" one of them asked.

"No!" Marcus replied, though it was slightly muffled.

The two marines pulled him to his feet by his shoulder and, with Marcus tipping his head back to try and dabbing his nose with a few tissues one of the marines had given him to try and stop the blood from flowing out of his nose, led him out of the arena and back into the rectangular building, where the other three taskforce soldiers saw him.

"Are you alright, Marcus!" Tyler asked as he ran over to him as one of the marines ran over to the elevator to bring it down.

Marcus shook his head and groaned in pain from doing so.

"We saw the whole thing on the computer screen above the door," Tyler said "Will he be alright?" he asked the marine standing next to Marcus.

"He'll be fine," the marine replied. "Doctor'll have something for his nose."

"Alright, elevator's here," the other marine announced.

The marine led Marcus over to the elevator and they entered with the other marine. The doors closed and the elevator rose up the tube to the control room at the top. The door to the control room opened and three stepped out of the elevator into the room and the door closed behind them.

_"Well, that was a bit of bad luck," _Avery's voice said a few moments later. _"But don't worry, you shouldn't fare as bad. Alright, who's next?"_


	5. Love feelings

**Later that day**

The underground base's hospital was a large rectangular room with silver walls and a dark silver floor and ceiling. It had two large entrances, one on the right wall and one on the left, both of which opened automatically to allow people to enter or exit. Along the walls were single beds, about thirty along both walls, some taken, others not, with state of the art equipment beside them.

About four of the beds were taken by marines and two by taskforce soldiers. Marcus was among those two, sitting on his bed that was on the left wall near the door at the left end of the room. His nose had turned a little red from where he had received a punch on the nose by a holographic form of an Elite during the training session earlier on. After being taken out of the training area, he was brought here and a medic gave him a bone repairing serum to fix his broken nose, which pained him terribly for the first few minutes after he was given it until it finally ended. The medic warned him, however, not to rub his nose too hard or fall over and hit it again for the next few hours, or the serum would continue repairing it whilst it was moving and his nose might look like it had been pushed to one side when it was finished being repaired.

Marcus turned his head to look over at the other taskforce soldier sitting on a bed about four further down from his. The soldier, called Sam, looked like he had the crap beaten out of him. His face was covered with bruise marks and cuts, one of his hands hurt every time he moved it and he had a black eye. Also, his leg was broken. Apparently, from what the medic had told him when Marcus asked what had happened to the taskforce soldier, was that he had been fighting a holographic Elite in the training session the day before and he had been beaten to a pulp. Marcus had been told by the medic he one of the lucky ones to survive a fight with an Elite as those who had tried, both in training and in real life combat, had been beaten to a pulp. He had also heard that Eve was the only taskforce soldier to have won a fight against a holographic Elite and, like Marcus, only sustain minor injuries.

The door to the hospital room opened and a familiar face walked in, beaming at him, and he smiled. It was Anya.

"How are you, Marcus?" she asked as she walked over to his bed.

"Fine," he replied sarcastically, but in a mocking manner. "My nose is broken and it still hurts, but only a little,"

Anya laughed. "Alright, don't get sarcastic," she said to him.

Marcus smirked. "Sorry,"

"It's okay,"

She sat down beside him. "I heard what happened to you from Amy," she said. Marcus looked at her, confused, so Anya added: "One of the women that was with your group in the training room,"

"Oh," Marcus got what she meant.

"Ooooooh!" the two looked behind them to see Sam move his arm, the one that hurt every time he moved it, under his covers. Anya grimaced at him.

"What happened to him?" she asked Marcus.

"The medic who treated me told me that he had to fight a holo Elite as well and, as you can see, he got the crap beaten out of him,"

Anya nodded in understanding and looked back at Sam and sighed at seeing him. She felt sorry for him having to go through that pain, but she was glad she was not the one who had fought an Elite. She had been lucky the other day when, after Eve had fought a holo-Elite, she had been given a holo-Jackal to fight. The creature had scratched her on the arm, making small cut with It's sharp claws, but that was about the worst she had got and she had managed to defeat the creature when she managed to pin the creature to the floor and twist It's arms behind It's back. She had received a round of applause for that as it was, as Avery put it, _"an amazing take down of a Jackal in hand to hand combat," _and she was proud she had done so, though it had scared her a little as it showed her a glimpse of the combat she was to be thrown into when the taskforce went on It's first mission and that she would actually be killing other beings, something she had never done before, but she reminded herself that they were trying to kill her and her race and, even though she did not fear death, she wanted to live, and besides it would be them or her.

Marcus sniffed and touched his nose but withdraw his hand quickly as a sharp pain flared out from the point where his fingers had touched it. Anya giggled at seeing him do this.

"You're not supposed to touch it," she told him.

"I know," he replied. "But my nose is beginning to itch a little,"

"I'm not scratching it for you,"

Marcus rolled his eyes and looked back down the room as the door at the other end of the hospital room opened up. A young medic with blonde hair, the one who had treated Marcus earlier on, came walking down towards him. He was not very happy when he saw Anya sitting on Marcus' bed.

"Hey, c'mon. No visitors!" he told Anya.

She sighed and faced Marcus. "I'll see you later," she said and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, which surprised him, before she got up and walked out of the room.

Marcus felt his cheek burn when she had kissed him and, when she had left, which he was left smiling dreamily after her, he blushed a little. Wow! That felt…amazing! He really like Anya, but he liked her more than just a friend. He loved her, but he had not told her how she felt about him. He would have to soon as he could not stand keeping it from her much longer.

Unfortunately, he was soon woken up out of his daydream when the medic walked over to him, which he was not very happy about.

"Alright, man. Quit your daydreaming and let check your nose," he said.

Sighing in annoyance, Marcus moved his face towards the medic who set about examining his nose with a small circular device, a bone scanner used to check for any breaks or dislocations or any other damages to bones, this being a quicker and easier way of X-rays, he had in his hand.


	6. Pelican training

**Date: March 26****th**

**Location: Reach training fields, one miles from the underground base**

Today, the taskforce was going through another phase of training, only it was on pelicans. Some were learning how to fly, apart from the pilot taskforce soldiers of course, whilst others were being given the training tasks of firing at targets from the pelican and launching landing operations after being dropped off from one and securing and protecting one from holo-Covenant forces. Pelican training exercises were hard, which was what some taskforce soldiers had said, but others had said they were good and easy.

Marcus did not know which one to believe at first, but today he would be making his own decision on that as he was going through his first training exercise on a pelican. However, what type of exercise it was he would be going through, he did not know. Hopefully, it would be an easy one and not the pelican exercise where you had to try and fly a pelican as he was no good at flying aircraft. Ground vehicles, he could control very easily but piloting a pelican was a lot harder and he really did not want to do that type of training.

"Alright, get ready!" a voice commanded from the cog pit.

Right now, Marcus was on a pelican with four other taskforce soldiers. A pilot named Brian was flying the craft and in the resting area with Marcus was Tyler, a woman, who was also a former marine, with blonde hair, blue eyes and an athletic body called Tanya from Russia and another woman called Alice, who had previously worked at the UNSC company of TechCorps, which was previously built to help in producing new weapons before the war but was now being used to study Covenant technology in hopes of finding a weakness in their ships, with brown hair, green eyes and she had a wound over her hand where a needler projectile had struck it during the Battle of New Milboar on Takra.

The four got up and took out their weapons from under their seats. Marcus, Tanya and Alice took out their battle rifles whilst Tyler took out a large deployable machine gun and set it up at the end of the resting area just in front of the entrance of the craft.

_"Alright, soldiers," _a voice said from the radio in the cog pit. It was the commanding officer in charge of the training at the training's base. _"The targets will enter the training region in ten seconds,"_

Upon hearing this, the four in the resting area quickly loaded ammo clips into their weapons and looked out of the resting area, waiting for the targets that would come after them in a few moments.

"Do you think the targets will be seraph fighters?" Tanya asked.

"Maybe," Tyler replied as he knelt down behind the machine gun turret and placed one hand over the trigger of the weapon. "But they'll most likely be banshees,"

"I hope they are," Marcus piped up. "I hate seraph fighters and if we get one of them on our tail, we're dead,"

"Just be thankful this is training," Alice said. "At least we won't actually die in this,"

The others nodded in agreement and resumed looking out the resting area, waiting for the targets to attack them. Marcus took a deep breath to keep calm. His heart was beating like made against his chest like a drum.

_C'mon! _he thought impatiently through fear. _Attack us already!_

Then, as if responding to his demands, the radio in the cog pit came to life again.

_"Prepare for the attack," _the voice said. _"Three…two….one…GO!"_

All of a sudden, the pelican shook as a barrage of blasts struck the side of it. Marcus and Tanya were thrown to the floor of the resting area but Tyler had managed to hold onto the machine gun turret to stay upright and Alice had grabbed hold of one of the seats to stop herself from falling on her back. As they got up, a large shape came into view from the resting area. It was a banshee, and it was chasing after them!

At once, Tyler got up and fired a barrage of bullets from the machine gun turret at the holo-craft. They hit the target and it fired a blast in return, which he and the other three ducked to avoid as it flew into the resting area and struck the wall next to the doorway that led into the cog pit. Marcus stood up and fired a burst of ammo at the craft, hitting it in one of the engines. A pillar of smoke rose from the banshee's engine and it veered left and disappeared from sight.

"Nice one, Marcus," Tyler commented.

"Look out!" Brian shouted suddenly from the cog pit.

The four were thrown against the right wall of the pelican as it banked in that direction to avoid a head on collision with another banshee. As the four got up, they looked out of the resting area to see the banshee turn around and fly after them. Then, the first banshee descended down from above and flew alongside the second banshee.

"Oh great!" Tanya said. "One of them is bad enough!"

"Let's just hope we take it down," Alice told her and she fired two bursts of ammo at the banshees, hitting both of them in the front but doing very little damage to either one, though it did make the banshees fire a barrage of blasts in return, which hit the craft on the wings and side.

"Hold on!" Brian shouted to them from the cog pit and the four grabbed hold of the seats, Tyler grabbing hold of the turret hard to hang on.

Suddenly, their worlds were spinning violently as Brian began spinning the pelican rapidly non-stop. The banshees tried to fire on the craft but It's quick manoeuvre made all of their blasts miss so they began to copy the pelican and were firing as they did so.

Marcus closed his eyes, as did Tyler, to block the images out of their minds and to stop themselves from throwing up. Tanya and Alice had their faces buried in their seats and were praying that this spinning would stop. Marcus and Tyler were doing the same thing. Their stomachs were churning and they were getting close to throwing up. They too were mentally praying for this to end, but they could not move to the cog pit and tell Brian to stop.

Suddenly, after a few horrible seconds of spinning and the feeling that you would be sick at any second, Brian stopped spinning the craft, but as soon as he did, he suddenly pulled back on the throttles and the pelican came to a halt, which almost threw the group to the floor. The banshees failed to react in time.

CRASH! Both of the craft slammed into the back of the pelican and they fell from the sky to the ground below, crashing into it and creating another loud explosion that lit up the sky. Then, as quickly as they crashed, they disappeared.

Marcus groaned as he got up and rested a hand on his stomach. That was horrible when Brian had spun the pelican around like that. At least the feeling of him throwing up was starting to go away. Another three groans around him made him look to see Tyler, Tanya and Alice sit up. Alice's' face had gone bright green. Tanya had one hand on her head and her eyes were still closed. Tyler began breathing heavy, holding onto the machine gun turret for support. Then, he dragged himself quickly over to the end of the pelican and, with a loud yell, vomited over the edge to the ground below.

"Are you guys alright back there?" Brian shouted to them from the cog pit as he flew the pelican forward again.

"If you do that again, Brian, I will come up and punch you," Tanya warned.

"Well, sorry, Tanya, but we were in a bit of a situation back there," Brian replied.

"Alright, c'mon, knock it off," Marcus barked, silencing the argument between them. "Let's just stay on track with the training,"

"Watch out! We got more of them coming after us!" Tyler warned all of a sudden.

The four looked out of the resting area entrance to see a large craft chasing after them. It was the craft Marcus and Tanya had been talking about a few minutes earlier on and what all of them on the pelican feared. It was a seraph fighter.

The seraph fighter fired a blast at the pelican, striking it at the right wing. A loud alarm sounded from the cog pit. Brian swore loudly and descended the pelican. The seraph fighter flew overhead but quickly turned around and flew after the pelican as it veered left in an effort to get them away from the craft.

"What's going on, Brian?" Tyler shouted to him.

"The right wing's badly damaged!" Brian replied, shouting as the alarm beeped louder.

Another blast shot underneath the pelican, narrowly missing it, followed by another. This time, it hit the pelican, striking it on the back and tearing a chunk of metal off of it.

"Oh crap!" Tyler said as he saw the metal fall off the craft. "We're so dead,"

"Not yet," Marcus told him. "Fire on that seraph fighter!" he ordered.

The other three obeyed and fired on the enemy holo-craft as he did. Their bullets struck the craft repeatedly, but they were doing very little against It's thick armour. It was going to take more than bullets to bring this craft down.

"Hang on, I'm gonna try and out-manoeuvre it!" Brian warned from the cog pit.

All of a sudden, the pelican shot upwards into the air, the seraph fighter following close behind, firing blasts at it as it did. Then, Brian descended the craft sharply and then ascended the craft again, this time Brian hoped the pelican would slam into the seraph fighter as it ascended back up into the sky, but the fighter avoided the pelican's upwards swipe and continued on after it.

Then, as the pelican descended again and veered left, the seraph fighter fired another blast at it. The blast struck the right wing of the craft. This time, smoke began coming out of the right wing and trailing behind the craft, which the four in the resting area quickly noticed. Then, fire engulfed the right wing. A louder alarm beeped from the cog pit.

"Oh no!" Brian exclaimed in panic. "Right wing's on fire!"

"Order command to stop the training then!" Alice shouted to him.

Brian grabbed the radio and shouted into it: "Command, this is Echo 003! Cease the training! I repeat, cease the training!"

No response came back. Brian repeated what he had shouted but still nothing came back. Growling, he threw the radio to the control panel.

"Damn it!" he shouted. "They're not responding! Let's face it, we're dead!"

"No, not yet!" Marcus told him. "Brian, descend the craft and keep descending it and, whatever you do, don't stop," he ordered.

Brian looked at Marcus for a second as if he were crazy, but then nodded and descended the craft. Sure enough, the seraph fighter followed it, firing away at the pelican, but Brian managed to get the pelican to avoid the blasts by moving the craft left and right, but still he continued to descend the craft towards the ground as if he wanted to crash it into it. Closer and closer the ground came but still Brian made no attempt to pull the craft up. Marcus looked through the cog pit door at the window to see the ground approaching, as did Tanya and Alice, who began to panic. Marcus then looked back out through the resting area entrance. The seraph fighter was still following them. Good. He looked back through the cog pit doorway to see the ground just forty feet from them.

"Now! Pull up!" he shouted at Brian.

The pelican, as if responding to his order itself, rose and flew back up into the air. The seraph fighter failed to react in time…

CRASH! The fighter slammed into the ground, throwing up al large cloud of dust and dirt. Marcus, Tyler, Alice and Tanya ran to the end of the resting area and looked down at where it had hit. Just as they did, an explosion erupted from the dust cloud and a large object skidded across the surface of the field, fire coming out of all sides of it.

The four cheered and Brian breathed a sigh of relief.

"Haha!" Marcus shouted in triumph. "We did it!"

"Yeah!" Tyler shot his fist into the air in triumph whist shouting out.

Tanya and Alice hugged each other whilst shouting happily. Brian let out a yell of happiness from the cog pit and clapped his hands whilst laughing.

They had done it. They had passed the training.

_"Echo 003, this is training base, over," _a voice said from the radio.

Brian grabbed the radio and held it up to his lips.

"Command, we did it!" he shouted. "We got right of the seraph fighter!"

_"We know, and good work, guys,"_ the voice replied. _"Now, head back to base. You've all done well today," _

Brian set the radio back down on the control panel and banked the pelican right and flew on in the direction of the training buildings. In the resting area, Marcus slumped down into his seat, heaving a heavy sigh of relief. They had done it. They had passed the pelican training. His decision on this training was it was good, but hard.


	7. Debriefing

**Date: April 2****nd**

**Reach main hall**

The past few weeks had been hard because of the training the taskforce had to go through, but, and they were glad to hear this, it was starting to draw to an end. Today was the first day since March when they were jot to have any training. Instead, they were being taken to the main hall where they would be debriefed on Covenant aliens, as there were members of the taskforce who had rarely fought the Covenant in a ground battle and needed to be updated on who it was they were fighting, and then they would be given their details on their first mission, which was to take place soon.

In the corridor leading down to the main hall, the taskforce was walking towards the room to be debriefed on the Covenant forces. At the back of the taskforce walking towards the main hall was Marcus. With him was Tyler, Tanya, Brian, Alice and a former ODST soldier who was heavily built and had brown hair and blue eyes. He was from Chicago on Earth and was wearing a green bodysuit. His name was Simon, but he had been an ODST Stinger Type II rocket launcher holder when he was in the ODST so he had been nicknamed 'Stinger', which he preferred to be called.

When the group reached the main hall, they saw it was a large square shaped room with a large computer screen attached to the wall at the opposite end. In the middle of the room was a set of hover chairs about thirteen across and five down. The taskforce members sat down on the chairs. Marcus, Tanya, Brian, Alice and Stinger sat down on the right end of the third row of chairs with Brian at the far right end, then Tanya, then Alice and then Stinger and then ending with Marcus.

"I do not see why we are to be," Tanya said, obviously annoyed. "We already these aliens,"

Stinger nodded in agreement. "It's stupid," he said.

"Well, at least it gives us a day off from the training," Alice told them.

The others nodded in agreement and looked at the computer screen as Sergeant John, who was standing in front of the computer screen, turned to face them.

"Good morning troops," he announced. "Lucky for you today, there will be no training. Today, we are going to show you troops of the Covenant and then assign each of you your tasks for your first mission,"

Tanya sighed in annoyance. Marcus felt the same way. Why did they all have to be taught about the Covenant when he had fought for much of the past year? Most of the taskforce had fought them as well and to them, this part of the day was a waste of time, but, unfortunately, they were not the ones to decide what they were to do. They would just have to go through it and wait until it was over, which they hoped would not be long.

"Now," John announced. "Here is the first alien,"

The computer screen lit up to life and the picture of a small alien with a large triangle armour piece sticking out of the back of the creature, a small head with a methane breather mask and large scaly arms and hands with large elephant-like feet appeared. It was a Grunt, which most of the taskforce recognized easily.

_You never forget them _Marcus mentally said to himself.

"This alien you see before us is called an Unggoy," John explained. "We call 'em Grunts, mainly because of their size and because they are not hard to kill. But be warned, troops. Even on Earth the hardest of creatures can still put up a brave fight, so remember they are easy to kill but they will put up a fight."

"Wow, this is boring," Brian said.

Tanya had decided to amuse herself by staring at the floor whilst rubbing her arm which was covered by the sleeve of her bodysuit, which was white. Alice's bodysuit was green and Brian's was red, both of who were also looking as though they would rather be back at the barracks and then go the next room to be assigned rather than come here to learn about the Covenant aliens they already knew about as they had fought them through much of the past year. Even Alice, who was part of the engineer force at TechCorps, which had barely come into contact with the Covenant, had fought them when the company's HQ building on Lupo was attacked and she had to join in the defence of the buildings until they were eventually withdrawn from the building, so even though she had only fought the Covenant once, she already knew a lot about them.

"Anyway," John went on. "Grunts fight in packs of up to four or five strong. They will, almost all the time, be in a pack when fighting. The only time when they are not is when they are on a turret or piloting a vehicle. They are usually led by either a higher ranking Grunt or an Elite. However, most Grunts will flee if confronted by superior enemies, unless they are being led by someone. I also suppose you're wondering why they have a huge triangle piece of armour on their backs. The reason is because the Grunt home world's atmosphere is mostly comprised of methane. In that armour is a methane tank that connects to the methane breather they wear over their mouths."

"Finally, Grunts have five ranks in their race in the Covenant. The first is a Grunt minor, they are always on the battlefield and wear orange armour. The second is a Grunt major, they are also on the battlefield and they usually lead minor Grunts if an Elite is not around. They wear red armour. The third is a heavy Grunt. Heavy Grunts are mostly used for defensive positions and are mostly seen on Shade turrets. They wear green armour. The fourth is a Special ops Grunt. These Grunts a mostly used for special missions. We have had very little combat with them, so don't worry too much about them. They wear jet black armour. The final rank is Grunt ultra. Grunt ultra's are the top Grunt commanders. They wear silver armour, but they are also rarely seen on the battlefield." John concluded, which caused Tanya to look up at him at hearing him stop, believing he was done talking.

"Is he done?" she asked hopefully.

She got her answer when John said: "The next alien you will see is known as a Kig-Yar," John said. "Or, as we call 'em, a Jackal," and she sighed in annoyance. Marcus groaned and rubbed his hand down his face. This was getting annoying. Hopefully, there were not many of these left to go for.

The image on the computer screen changed from a Grunt to a six foot tall creature that looked like a mutated vulture with no fur and a snout with sharp teeth and large purple eyes that gave the creature on the screen a look as if it were ready to kill. It was a Jackal.

However, it did scare a few people around them, which Marcus noticed as the man next to him muttered "Whoa!" and a woman in front of him gasped. He smirked.

_There's a lot worse than this _he mentally said to himself.

"The Jackal is an extremely cautious creature," John explained. "They are a lot better in combat than Grunts. This is mainly because they have amazing vision, hearing and smelling. Also, they have good climbing abilities with their hands and feet, which can allow them to climb trees and small buildings. The wrist device they carry is actually a shield which they use to defend themselves and wounded in combat. The shield is pretty much bullet-proof. Only rockets, grenades and weapons from vehicles and turrets can destroy those shields. However, instead of wasting your ammo, the best thing to do is to wait for the Jackal to return fire because he moves the shield from in front of him to his side, completely exposing himself. However, if you manage to destroy the shield but the Jackal still lives, it'll flee until the shield activates. So a word of advice, you see a fleeing bird, kill it."

Marcus managed to stifle a yawn and Stinger chuckled a little. A moment of amusement in this boring time. There were only a few more left to go over but he was wishing he could staple his ears shut.

"Before we move on," John added. "There are two known ranks in the Jackal race. The first is a minor Jackal. The second is a major Jackal. These two Jackals are no different in appearance or armour or weapons. The only difference is their shields. The Minor Jackals' shield is always green. The major Jackals' shield is always a purple/pink colour. Remember that."

"Wow, this is getting more boring by the minute," Tanya muttered, which made Alice smirk and Brian nod in agreement.

They watched as the image on the computer screen changed again from a Jackal to a tall bulky alien with light blue armour on It's torso, head, arms, legs, hands and feet. It had a helmet on, which only just revealed two pairs of mandibles below it, which was the mouth of the creature. It was an Elite.

Tanya looked up, this time a little amused. "Ah, at least they have something here that is worth going over," she said.

"This alien you see now is called Sangheili," John explained. "We call it an Elite. The reason we call this alien an Elite is because they are the backbone of the Covenant army. They are very aggressive, strong and fast. Their height is about eight and a half feet tall. The way their legs go in a backwards curve beneath their knees allows them to jump over great distances. Their armour is like steel. It covers pretty much all of their body. Also, their armour has a built in shield that recharges, much like your own. Also, their armour has some sort of active camouflage. They are invisible, but they can easily be seen by the outline of their armour. If you can kill them, the camouflage will be disabled and you will see their bodies."

"Or maybe not," Alice said.

"We only know a handful of ranks in the Elites army." John continued. "The first is an Elite minor. They were light blue armour and they are easy to kill. They mostly lead Grunts and Jackals and are always on the battlefield. The second is an Elite major. They were red armour and are slightly stronger and more deadly than Elite minors. They also lead Grunts and Jackals, but can sometimes lead two or three Elite minors. The third we know about is known as a 'Zealot' by the Covenant. They were gold armour that is quite difficult to penetrate. It is common to see them on the battlefield, but they will only appear if their other troops are dead or if they are defending important areas of the battlefield. They are like battlefield commanders and they can fire their weapons like hell at you. And if that wasn't enough, they have a weapon called the energy sword that is probably the only proper weapon that can kill you with one swipe."

Marcus rubbed his hands over his eyes. This was starting to really get to him. He was mentally praying this would not go on for much longer.

"Now, the last alien you will see is a very hard alien to kill," John said.

Thank God! Marcus' eyes lit up when he heard this. Only one more and they were done! Tanya and Alice felt the same way, as did Brian and Stinger.

The image on the computer screen changed from an Elite to a huge alien about twelve feet tall with a large cannon on one arm and a huge metal sword-like object attached onto the other. It had huge bulking blue armour on and large feet that looked as though they could crush a man. It was a Hunter, an alien Marcus had only thought once and he had almost been killed at the time, and since then he had hoped he would not face a Hunter again.

"This alien is known as a Mgalekgolo," John explained. "We call it a Hunter. The reason is because although they are not fast like Elites, they can easily take down an enemy within a range of around two to five hundred metres away with It's cannon. Because they don't have any eyes, they find their way around through sense of smell and strong hearing, but this hearing does not work like the Jackals. Now this cannon can fire heavy exploding plasma projectiles that can devastate an area of up to twenty yards. So a word of advice, you see one of these things, either get behind a big rock or kill it using a grenade. However, these guys do have a weak spot. On their back is an exposed part of orange skin. A grenade or burst of ammunition from a heavy weapon can kill them quickly. These aliens mainly work in pairs for heavy attack or heavy defence and there are no ranks in their army."

When he stopped, Marcus smiled. Finally, he was done, but why were they still here? Wait, did he have any more aliens to go over? Hopefully not, or he would end up nailing his head to the floor and stapling his eyes shut.

The image of the Hunter disappeared and was replaced by an image of about fifty Covenant assault carriers and scores of Covenant CCS battle cruisers. How someone had been able to take this picture must have been on a suicide mission.

Upon seeing this, Marcus shot up in his seat. This attracted Tanya and Alice's attention, as they had been staring at the floor, zoned out from this debriefing, and they looked up and went wide-eyed at the sight of the enormous Covenant fleet. Brian and Stinger went wide-eyed as well. That was a big fleet, the biggest any of them had ever seen.

"This Covenant fleet is part of the main fleet that launches the attacks on our colonized planets," John explained. The image zoomed in closer on an assault carrier that was in the middle of the fleet. "This assault carrier is the head of this fleet," John continued. "Our sources tell us that this ship is carrying Intel on the Covenant home world. Like them, we don't know where their home world is. But if you can board this ship and get to the bridge, we will learn the location of the Covenant home world. Our very survival could depend on the outcome of this mission."

Marcus and Stinger turned their heads to look at each other, wide-eyed. Tanya, Alice and Brian did the same, as did other people around the room. This mission was then obviously very high risk if it involved Humanity's very survival and even now Marcus was thinking as he looked back at the image of the Covenant fleet on the computer screen: would they succeed? If they did, then Humanity might just have a chance in winning this war, but if they did not, then Humanity's days were more or less numbered to a matter of weeks, months if they were lucky.

"This mission will take place in ten days' time," John said. "Now before we go, I have one more thing to say: Eve will be leading the assault,"

At these words, Marcus and Stinger looked over at the left end of the second row of chairs at a woman with silver hair. Eve. Tanya, Alice and Brian looked over at where she was sitting as well.

"Eve is here?" Tanya said, aghast.

"Yeah, I saw her come in on the first day," Marcus replied.

"I didn't know she was here," Stinger piped up.

"As Eve is the best in the UNSC, she has been chosen personally by the BnL president to lead you against the Covenant." John said. "Now, go back to your barracks and rest. You will report to the mission hall later today to go over the mission's objectives."

The taskforce got up, Marcus and his group a lot quicker than everyone else as they wanted to get out of the hall in a hurry after being bored to death in this debriefing. However, as Marcus left the main hall, he began to think over the mission. _Our very survival could depend on the outcome of this mission_. Those words stuck to him like glue. If they succeeded in their mission, then Humanity could win the war, but Marcus was thinking of what would happen if they failed. He could only imagine the death and destruction that would follow if that happened.

Shaking the thoughts out of his mind, he walked on down the corridor with Tanya, Brian, Stinger and Alice, passing Eve and her friends who were laughing at something Allison had said.


	8. An early mission

**Four days later**

**Date: April 6****th****, 2552**

The training for the taskforce was starting to draw to a close. They had only a few days left of it before they were to be prepared for their first mission, which was, no doubt, what everyone was talking about. Some, like Marcus, were already thinking, what would happen on this mission and what would happen when it was over, whether they would win or not. Everyone was silently thinking and worrying about the consequences of what would happen if they failed on this attack, thinking about the death and destruction that would befall Reach and, eventually, Earth and all the other planets in the home system of Humanity. Some tried not to think about it and set their minds on other things, but it was hard doing so. With a mission that you could well and truly die in and that guarantee's the very survival of the entire Human race, it was hard just not thinking about it.

In the barracks, Marcus, Tanya, Alice, Stinger and Tyler were sitting around the bunk beds Tanya and Stinger slept on, talking. As usual, it was about the upcoming mission, but it also did include a certain taskforce soldier as well.

"Do you think she's up to it?" Stinger asked them as he looked down the barracks towards the end.

"Of course!" Alice replied. "She's been a good leader in the ER, so this isn't really a lot different,"

"Yeah, but that's the ER," Marcus told her. "This is completely different. Most of us won't be flying in Stalker craft, we'll be on the ground."

Tanya nodded in agreement. "He is right," she said. "Eve may not be up to leading us all on our first mission,"

Marcus looked down the room at Eve. She was sitting on her bed, looking at the plans of attack on the assault carrier. She had several blueprints and pieces of paper stacked beside her. He sighed. She had been working hard in trying to make sure that the taskforce got to the ship safely, without any losses. He knew that Eve had been working hard because Anya had told him earlier on, after Eve had fallen asleep in a debriefing and fallen out of her chair onto the floor, that she had been up for most of last night going over the blueprints. Everyone was worrying about her but they did not dare to approach her, partly that was because they had been given orders not to disturb her when she was going over the plans, but mainly because she would turn aggressive when disturbed. He had even seen this when he had helped Anya and sergeant John take her back to the barracks for her to rest, after she had fallen asleep in her chair during the debriefing, and had yelled at them when they refused to let her look at the plans and even came close to throttling John. After that, everyone, even her own friends, had decided it was best to keep their distance from her.

"I feel sorry for her," Stinger said as he turned his head away from her. "How long has she been going over those things?" he asked.

"About three hours," Tanya answered. "And she has not had a rest or a drink or anything. She's going to overwork herself,"

"D'you know what," Marcus piped up as he stood up. "I'm going over there and I'm gonna tell her to get some rest,"

"Marcus, don't," Alice said, standing up and putting her hand on his chest to stop him. Stinger got up as well in case he needed to hold him back. "She'll beat the crap out of you,"

"Alice is right," Stinger added. "Don't annoy her, Marcus. And besides, you might get thrown out of the taskforce. In case you've forgotten, we're not supposed to disturb her under orders of sergeant John,"

Marcus went to reply but paused and stared at Eve for a moment and sighed and nodded in agreement. Alice and Stinger were right. Even though he wanted to help Eve and not make herself go crazy or overwork herself just because she wanted to help and make sure everyone in this taskforce survived in the upcoming attack, he did know that if he tried to stop Eve from overworking, he would most likely end up with a black eye or broken nose, and there was even a chance, as Stinger put it, that he would get chucked out of the taskforce. He would just have to leave her to it and hope she would eventually learn not to overwork herself.

However, as he went to sit down, the barracks door opened and sergeant John walked in. Marcus looked over at John, along with the others in his group who saw Marcus looking over at the door, and John, who was scanning the room with his eyes, met his gaze. When he did, he walked over towards them.

"I'm glad I found you guys," he said when he reached them. "Come with me, please,"

The group stared at each other, confused, and, deciding it was best to follow his orders, got up and followed John out of the barracks and into the corridor.

"Where are you taking us?" Marcus asked John.

"To the hanger," he replied. "We've got an early mission we need you guys to do for us,"


	9. Skirmish at New Haven outpost

**One hour later**

**Location: New Haven outpost, ten miles south of Axiom base. **

Flying in the skies of Reach, a large shape descended towards a small cluster of buildings. It was a pelican. On board were two pilots and five members of the taskforce. They were Marcus, Tyler, Tanya, Alice and Stinger (Simon). They had been given orders by John to come here after reports of a disturbance. What is was, they did not know, but some officials at the main base were nervous. They feared this was the Covenant that had caused this disturbance, and they were probably right, but how many of them would be at this outpost if they had been the reason for this disturbance they did not know. What they did know, however, was that they were not receiving anything back from the outpost, even after they sent a few messages to confirm if they were okay, so something was up and they needed to find out what.

The co-pilot stood up from his seat and opened the cog pit door to the resting area. In front of him, Marcus, Tanya, Alice, Tyler and Stinger were sitting in the seats talking to one another. They all turned their heads to face him when he opened the door.

"Alright, get ready, guys," the co-pilot said to them. "We're just about to descend towards the outpost,"

The co-pilot disappeared back into the cog pit, closing the door behind him. The five taskforce members reached under their seats and took out their weapons. They were all battle rifles but they also had two fragmentation grenades each and an M6C pistol.

"Do you guys think it is the Covenant?" Tyler asked as he loaded a clip into his battle rifle.

"Most likely," Tanya replied. "I don't know anything or anyone else that can cause an entire outpost to stop responding to base,"

"She's right," Marcus piped up. "Something like this happens, the Covenant are the only ones who can be held responsible."

The group felt the craft descend and they looked out through the pelican's entrance to see the hilly and field landscape grow steadily nearer to their craft. The New Haven outpost had been built in quite a remote area, as a king of radar and scouting barrier against an attack on Reach. In recent months, it had been operational non-stop, as had all the other radar stations scattered across Reach, to warn the planet if the Covenant launched an attack. Nothing had happened since these stations had been put on high alert but the UNSC were not lowering their guard for they knew that if one little hole was made in their defences, then the Covenant could very easily exploit that hole to their advantage and make it larger until they could launch a full scale attack on the planet, and if that happened then Humanity could be finished in a matter of months.

The pelican descended further towards the ground. About four hundred feet on the ground ahead of them was a small cluster of buildings wedged between two small hills, though they looked like small cliffs like you would find in the desert, and a small field. Two of the buildings were C shaped and were placed about sixty feet from each in the middle of the cluster of buildings. Coming out of the back of both of the C shaped buildings were large square shaped sections with small radar antennae sticking out of the top of them. About twenty feet south from the two C shaped buildings was a small rectangular building, about twenty five feet long and twenty feet high, with a small cube shaped section placed in the middle of the roof of the rectangular main section of the building. A tiny dirt path led from the base out into the field, where it joined onto a small road. Nearby on the hill were five wind turbines with small power generators placed on the ground next to them. They were obviously there to power the base, and they were still spinning so this was a strange situation. If this was the Covenant, then they would usually cut off power to the base, but the turbines were still spinning, which meant that they were still working, but this was strange…even for the Covenant. Something was definitely up here and what it was could be very serious.

The pelican descended towards the ground, coming to a halt about ten feet above the ground, about forty feet from the outpost. The five taskforce members jumped down from the pelican onto the ground, keeping their weapons half-raised in case the Covenant were here and decided to launch an attack on them.

"_Good luck, guys," _came the pilot's voice from the cog pit as the pelican hovered back into the air. _"Base'll contact you in a few minutes," _

The pelican turned and flew off back into the direction of the base. The taskforce members watched it go and disappear into the distance. The group did not have radios attached to their uniforms like the UNSC soldiers but had small radios placed in their ears, allowing them to communicate with each other and the base.

"Right," Marcus said, making the rest of the group face him. "Let's go,"

Marcus led the group towards the outpost. As they approached it, a feeling of uncertainness began to surround them. There was something wrong here. The Covenant always cut off power to a station or outpost when they attacked one so if they had attacked here, which they most likely had done, then why was the power still on knowing that this base was connected to the main UNSC stronghold just ten miles away? This was very strange and it was making the squad concerned, nervous even.

When the squad reached the edge of the outpost, Marcus raised his weapon and aimed it around the main courtyard in front of them, checking every corner to make sure no Covenant, if there were any here, were going to sneak up and attack them.

"Aright, It's clear," he told the squad. "Let's move out,"

He led the squad forward cautiously, all of them having their weapons raised and pointing them around their surroundings. As they entered the courtyard, they noticed that the large doors on the ends nearest them of the C shaped buildings were wide open. Looking inside, they saw the rooms inside the buildings were a mess with crates scattered everywhere and several shapes lying on the floor and strange marks on the walls and floor.

"What the Hell?" Tyler said to himself.

"Split up," Marcus ordered. "Me and Tanya'll go in this building-" he pointed to the C shaped building to the squad's left. "-Alice and Stinger, you guys go in the other building. Tyler you keep watch. Keep quiet and yell if you get attacked or see anything suspicious,"

They nodded and Alice and Stinger ran over to the entrance on the other building. Tyler ran over to the entrance of the left C shaped building with Tanya and Marcus and placed himself against the wall, raising his weapon out across the courtyard and keeping his finger on the trigger of his weapon. Tanya and Marcus ran into the building, but quickly stopped.

The reason: on the floor in front of them they saw what the shapes were. They were the bodies of dead workers and marines. The marks on the floor around them and on the walls were blood. Looking down the room, Marcus and Tanya saw more dead bodies and blood. A struggle had obviously taken place here, but how long ago was the real question.

"Jesus Christ!" Marcus gasped.

"What is it?" Tyler asked, looking into the room, only to see the dead bodies. "Whoa!" he said.

"A struggle has taken place here?" Tanya said. "And I have feeling that the Covenant are still in the base,"

"Question is: where?" Marcus replied. "And how many?" he added. "Tyler, you stay there. C'mon, Tanya,"

She nodded and they, cautiously, walked down the room towards a large opening on the left wall that led into a large control room. As they approached it, they saw more dead bodies lying on the floor. So the Covenant had been here for there was no one else that could have killed them but where were they and how many of them were there?

"Have you found anything yet?" 

Marcus and Tanya froze on the spot, their eyes wide with terror. Their fingers were on their weapons' triggers, ready to fire. That sounded close, very close.

"Nothing yet, master," a high pitched voice replied.

"Well, continue searching!" a deep voice ordered. "We must find it,"

Marcus tiptoed quietly towards the turning on the wall that led into the square shaped section of the building; Tanya following close behind. When they reached it, Marcus stepped forward and poked his head out from behind the wall to look into the control room.

Along the walls were several large controls panels. On the back wall of the control room was a small computer screen attached to the wall that was smashed. Some of the control panels were sparking electricity, having been damaged in the struggle that had taken place earlier. Standing in front of the control panel along the back wall was a tall bulky figure with light blue armour and had a plasma rifle in his hand. It was an Elite. Around him were three smaller figures with large triangular pieces of armour sticking out of their backs and wielding plasma pistols in their hands. Grunts. The Elite was watching his three smaller squad members search through the control panels. One of the Grunts went to reach for something on a control panel but fell forward and It's arm hit a piece of the control panel that fell off with a clang.

"Watch yourselves!" the Elite barked. "Do not destroy any of this important machinery! We need to find what we are looking for! Keep searching!"

Marcus looked back at Tanya with a confused look on his face. What were they looking for? Why were they searching for something here? What could possibly be here that they wanted?

Then, as Marcus went to look out from behind the wall, one of the Grunts tried to climb onto the control panel but slipped and fell over, earning another frustrated growl from the Elite, on It's back. The Grunt's eyes, now facing the entrance to the control room, immediately saw Marcus.

"AAAHHHH! ENEMY!" it screamed, pointing over at the wall.

The Elite and other two Grunts shot round to see him standing there. The Elite growled.

"It is time to meet your end," it said and fired a barrage of light blue blasts at the wall.

Luckily, Marcus moved his head behind it just in time. The blasts hit the wall and fizzed away as they hit the wall as if they were eating away at it. The Grunts, including the one who had fallen over and spotted Marcus, fired shots from their plasma pistols at the wall as if they were hoping to break through it and hit their enemies.

Marcus blind fired a burst of ammo out from behind the wall at the Covenant squad. A yell erupted from the control room, followed by a small thud, indicating he had hit and killed a Grunt. The Elite growled in annoyance and took out a plasma grenade. It pressed It's thumb down on the orange thunderbolt, turning the grenade into a small blue fireball, and threw it towards the wall. It landed on the floor next to Marcus.

"WATCH OUT!" Tanya yelled, grabbing Marcus and pulling him away from the wall.

BOOM! The plasma grenade exploded, lighting up the whole room for a second before fading. As Marcus and Tanya lifted themselves up from the floor, the Elite and the two Grunts ran out from behind the wall and aimed their weapons at the two Humans on the floor.

"You will die along with the rest of your heretic brothers here!" the Elite said to them.

Marcus and Tanya's eyes went wide. It looked like they were goners.

Suddenly, a burst of ammo exploded behind them and the Elite was thrown backwards onto the floor. The two Grunts yelled and ran down towards the other end of the room, waving their arms about in the air in terror. Another two bursts of ammo filled the air again, killing the two remaining Grunts.

Marcus and Tanya looked behind them and saw Tyler, Stinger and Alice standing there. They ran over to them as the two got up.

"Thanks, guys," Marcus said to them as they reached them.

"It's okay," Tyler replied. "I went over to see if Alice and Stinger were okay and we heard the gunfire and came over to see what was up," he looked at the dead Elite and then the two dead Grunts. "So what do you think they were doing here?" he asked.

"Me and Tanya overhead them say they were looking for something," Marcus replied, also looking back at the dead Elite. "But what the Hell it is, I have no idea. Any of you guys?" he asked the squad.

They all shook their heads to say no. This was getting strange. They had found out who had caused this disturbance, but now they were stuck with the question of what the Covenant were looking for. What were they looking for? And why were they looking here? What could here that they possibly wanted? Something was up?

Then, the squad's ear radios came to life.

_"Marcus?" _came a voice from their ear radios. _"Marcus, come in, this is base, over,"_

Marcus placed a finger on his ear radio. "Base, this is Marcus, over,"

_"Roger that. Have you found anything at the New Haven outpost?"_

"We found a Covenant squad comprising of an Elite minor and three Grunts. They said they were looking for something, but…I or anyone else in my squad here knows what it could be?"

"Has anybody of high importance visited this outpost in recent days?" Tanya asked and Marcus looked at her to see she had a finger on her ear radio as well.

_"Well, about two days ago, Captain McCrea went to the outpost to collect something, but it's quite classified so I don't know what it was he went to collect,"_

Whilst they were talking, Stinger heard something outside. He walked to the entrance of the building and looked outside. Just as he did, a green shot flew out from the rectangular building and hit rhe wall next to him and he dived back inside the building.

"Damn it, that was close!" he exclaimed as he got up.

"What is it?" Marcus asked.

"There's a Jackal on the roof of the rectangular building," he replied.

Then, a loud whirring sound filled the air. The squad looked up at the ceiling with wide eyes as if they could see right through it. if there was a whirring sound in the air like that, then they knew it could only mean one thing.

_KZK… "Marcus, what's going on?" _

"We've got trouble. You'll have to report back to you later," Marcus said and he lowered his finger from his ear and reloaded his battle rifle. "Get ready," he said as he walked pat them, stopping near the entrance.

He pushed himself against the right wall and signalled to the squad to do the same. They did so, forming a line behind him with Alice behind Marcus, then Tyler, then Tanya and then Stinger bringing up the rear.

"Wait here," Marcus said to them as he stepped forward towards the building's entrance.

When he reached it, he leaned forward slightly and looked out. He could see the feet of a creature and the bottom of a silver vest that was wrapped around the creature's torso. It was a Jackal.

Marcus knelt down, giving himself a clear view of the Jackal, who had It's Covenant carbine, a Covenant rifle but also a sniper, aimed directly at the entrance. He raised his weapon and put his finger on the trigger. He took a deep breath, knowing that in order to achieve a good hit on the Jackal, he had to step forward a little, putting himself in range of the Jackal, and fire on it to kill him. He exhaled and breathed in deeply again, and stepped forward.

The next thing Marcus' squad knew, Marcus fired a burst of ammo, only to be thrown backwards by the shot from the Covenant carbine outside, which had been fired at him at the same time he had fired the burst of ammo at the Jackal. A loud screech erupted from outside but they ignored it and ran over to their squad leader. Tanya and Stinger grabbed him by the arms and pulled him back into the building away from the entrance.

"Are you alright?" Tyler asked as he knelt down beside Marcus.

He got his answer when Marcus groaned as he sat up. Then, a small holographic meter appeared above his wrist. The level in the meter was green and beeping red. Then, the level in the meter rose to the top of the meter and stopped blinking red and disappeared into thin air. Marcus smiled a little in relief. He had forgotten about the shield's built-in shield. Thank God that he had this thing on, or he would be dead.

"This suit is strong," he said as he got up and Tyler handed him his battle rifle, which he had dropped when he had been thrown backwards onto the floor.

"I think we got a drop ship landing outside," Stinger said as he walked to the entrance and looked outside.

He looked left to the courtyard to see a huge craft with two L shaped sections attached to a large silver bulge-like section at the back of the two sections, holding them together. A large turret, much like that of a shade turret only without the sphere or the legs, was connected to the bottom of the large silver section. Between the two L shaped sections was a blue haze-like cloud that looked like a visible cloud of electricity. The turret aimed around the area as the craft lowered to the ground.

Gulping, Stinger moved his head back into the building and faced the squad.

"Covenant drop ship outside," he said.

"Alright, get ready," Marcus ordered. "We're in for a hell of a fight. Take up positions near the control room,"

The squad obeyed and ran over to the control room. Stinger, Tyler and Marcus picked up a few crates near the entrance and those scattered across the floor near the control room and set up a small barricade near the control room entrance. Tanya, Alice and Stinger took cover behind that, crouching down behind it and pointing their weapons over the crates or through any holes among them big enough for the barrels of their guns to fit through. Marcus took cover behind the control room wall turning and Tyler took cover behind the turning on the wall across from the control room entrance, crouching down and aiming his weapon at the entrance.

Marcus looked over at the control panels and quickly scanned them with his eyes to see if he could find anything that might explain why the Covenant was searching them. There was nothing and he was again lost with the question: Why were the Covenant soldiers here searching the controls panels for something? Whatever it was, it had to be big? What if…it was what captain McCrea had?

"Search the building!" a deep voice shouted from outside, drawing Marcus' attention away from the control panels and back to the building's entrance. "Get going you whelp!"

The squad readied themselves, placing their fingers on the triggers of their weapons, ready to fire on whatever Covenant appeared in the doorway. Marcus reloaded another ammo clip into his battle rifle and poked his head out from behind the wall to look at the doorway, waiting for the Covenant.

Then, a small figure lumbered into view. It was a Grunt. Another two followed it. Then, a thin vulture-like creature appeared, wielding a large green shield that was coming out of a device attached to It's wrist. It was a Jackal. All of them were holding plasma pistols.

Marcus looked over at the others and nodded, meaning they should be ready to fire. They all replied with nods and aimed their weapons at the Covenant squad. Marcus did the same and placed his finger on his battle rifle's trigger. The Jackal looked around to see if it could see anything that looked out of the ordinary. There was a barricade of crates in front of the entrance to a large room, but that was about i-wait a minute. The Jackal looked closer and saw several things behind the barricade of crates. They looked like…

"NOW!"

A barrage of gunfire filled the air, followed by a loud screech and several yells. After a few seconds, the barrage came to an end and the squad looked out to see the Covenant squad lying dead on the ground.

"Good work," Marcus said. "Alright, let's go see if they're anymo-"

BOOM! The wall of the building seemed to explode all of a sudden, throwing rubble in all directions, some striking the squad but, thankfully, they did not do much harm. A cloud of dust and smoke was thrown into the air; engulfing the squad and making them cough.

"Everyone alright?" Marcus asked as the cloud of dust and smoke began to clear.

The others groaned in reply. They were all okay.

THUD! THUD! What was that? THUD! THUD! Those thuds sounded very close, but what were they? And where they were coming from?

Then, as the dust cloud finally disappeared and light began to fill in from the outside, two large shapes appeared in the hole. The squad looked and went wide-eyed.

Standing there was two large creatures with thick blue armour, were both about twelve feet tall, had a huge metal sword on one arm and a large cannon on the other. Hunters! Oh great, this was bad! Very bad!

"Oh, crap!" Tyler said as he scrambled to his feet, grabbing his weapon.

Green lights began to form in the Hunters' cannons. They grew brighter and brighter. The squad saw this and went wide-eyed. They were preparing to fire!

"GET TO COVER!" Marcus yelled, though there was no other cover within reach apart from the rubble, and that was not going to withstand the cannons of the Hunters.

The Hunters aimed their large and deadly weapons and got ready to fire.

BOOM! An explosion sounded outside, followed by another that engulfed the Hunters. The squad were thrown to the floor once again. What was going on?

After a few seconds, Marcus looked up, aiming his weapon ahead of him, to see that the Hunters were dead. One of them was lying on It's back on the ground outside. Behind it was a small burning pile of metal that Marcus recognized as the drop ship Stinger had seen. The other was lying face down a few feet into the building. In front of it was Tyler, who groaned as he lifted his head, only to gasp and scramble away from the Hunter when he saw it.

"What the Hell was that?" Tanya asked as she got up and helped Alice to her feet.

"I don't know," Stinger replied.

Marcus stepped forward towards the hole when a groan emitted from the Hunter. They squad looked at it and saw it rise a few feet as it tried to lift itself with It's sword arm and cannon.

"Quick, kill it!" Marcus exclaimed.

The squad ran over to the creature and jumped on it and fired a barrage of bullets into the orange weak spot. The Hunter let out a loud groan and thudded to the floor, dead.

_"Are you guys alright?" _a voice said from the squads' ear radios.

A loud whooshing sound erupted from outside. The squad turned and ran outside to see a pelican about twenty feet away from the base, hovering about six feet above the ground. They smiled. The pelican had arrived and saved them in the nick of time.

"_Hop on board," _came the pilot's voice.

The squad ran over to the pelican and climbed in. When they were all in and sitting down on the seats, the pelican hovered up into the air and flew away in the direction of the base.

"That was tough," Stinger said as he rested his head against the wall behind him.

The others nodded in agreement.

"We'll have to tell the others this when we get back to base," Marcus said. 


	10. You are not to tell anyone!

**Half an hour later**

**Location: **_**Axiom**_** main base **

The pelican flew back towards the base, It's five taskforce members talking amongst themselves about what they had just been through at the New Haven outpost some ten miles away. When the base came into view, the pilots began to descend the pelican towards it. When it was about twenty feet above the ground, the pelican came to a halt and slowly lowered to the ground, the landing gear unfolding themselves as it neared the ground. When they touched the ground, the craft jolted slightly and the five jumped down onto the ground.

When they were all off the craft, sergeant John walked up to them from a nearby small cube shaped building.

"Good work, troops," he said. "Follow me,"

He led them back towards the cube shaped building. They followed, Marcus leading them. They were wondering about how to explain his to John. The Covenant at the New Haven outpost might be something serious and they had to let him know about it.

"Aren't you gonna tell him what happened?" Stinger whispered to Marcus, who nodded in reply.

"When we're inside," Marcus told him. "I think that's what he wants anyway,"

The door on the front of the building opened as they approached it and John led the group of taskforce soldiers inside into a small square shaped room with a window on the opposite wall with a stairwell leading up to the roof on the right wall. There was a bookcase along the back wall next to the window and a desk in the middle of the room with a chair behind it. In the corners, both left and right, next to the entrance door were alien plants. A holo-light hovered in the air a few inches below the ceiling. When everyone was inside, Marcus at the front of the group of taskforce soldiers and John had walked behind the desk and turned to face the troops in front of him, John began to speak.

"So what happened at the New Haven outpost?" he asked.

"We found Covenant soldiers there, sir," Marcus replied.

"How many?"

"An Elite and a squad of three Grunts to start off with. Then, a Covenant drop ship arrived with a Jackal sniper, two Hunters, and a few more Grunts and Jackals,"

John 'hmmed' when Marcus told him this. This was strange, very strange.

"Was the outpost destroyed?" he asked.

"No, sir," Marcus replied. "That's what's really strange. They didn't destroy it like they usually would. And, there's something else as well. Me and Tanya overheard them talking."

"What did they say?"

"We heard the Elite, which was in the control room of the outpost, say it was looking for something. I don't know what so I asked base control and they said captain McCrea had been there a few days before and had returned with something, but I don't know what and neither did base control."

Again, John 'hmmed'. This was getting to be very strange. Captain McCrea goes to the New Haven outpost and returns with something, then the Covenant arrive at the outpost days later and attack it but don't destroy it and they're overheard looking for something. Maybe it was what McCrea had, but even John, who was a close friend of captain McCrea, did not know what it was he had returned with.

After a few seconds, John cleared his throat.

"Right, well, that's all then," he said. "You guys head back to the barracks and, and this includes you guys as well, we'll say nothing more on the matter,"

At these words, the squad's eyes went wide with shock. What! What did he mean they were not to say anything more on the matter? What was going on?

"What do you mean: we won't say anything more on the matter?" Marcus asked.

"I mean, _we won't_ talk about this attack in the presence of anyone else," John replied. "And I also mean _you won't _talk about this to everyone else in the barracks,"

"What!" Stinger exclaimed. "Why?" he demanded furiously.

"Because I don't anyone else to know that the Covenant sent a small team to this planet!" John replied, his voice also rising. "If everyone else in that barracks was to know about this, then they would start their own goddam solo missions to find the Covenant! Plus, for all we know this could have been a recon team!"

"Yeah, but the Covenant will send a fleet here once they know they've lost a team!" Alice told him.

"Exactly!" Tanya butted in. "You know that the Covenant will come here to find out what has happened to them!"

"Which is why if they do, then only you guys will be informed," John replied. He walked around the desk and stopped in front of Marcus and stepped closer towards him, making him back away a little until he was part of the group. "Now you guys listen, and listen good!" he growled. "No one else is to hear about this attack! You guys are not to speak of it to anyone else! You are not to mention it to anyone else. You are not to even mention it in the presence of anyone else! And if one other person in that taskforce, who all these warnings mostly apply to, hears of what happened today, then you will all be thrown out of this taskforce and the UNSC military and possibly even face imprisonment!" he paused and stepped back a pace from the group "Do I make myself clear?" he said in a calm tone.

The squad members looked at each other, all with shocked filled eyes, for a moment before Marcus sighed and faced John.

"Yes, sir," he said lowly.

"Good," John replied. "Now go back to your barracks," he ordered. "And remember, _keep quiet_," he added.

The squad nodded and walked out of the building back towards the base to get to their barracks. As they went, they began to whisper amongst themselves why this was happening.

Marcus was shocked completely by this. Why were they not allowed to tell anyone else about this? It was stupid! They had a right to know as well. They had fellow taskforce soldiers. Also, John said that the Covenant squad they encountered could be just a recon team, but Tanya and Alice had pointed out to him that the Covenant might come here in full force once they realise a recon team is missing. This was stupid. Stupid and…and…and foolish. 

However, Marcus was still fixed on something else as well. What was it the Covenant was looking for that captain McCrea supposedly had? What was it? Was it plans for UNSC fleet deployments, or some kind of Covenant technology captured by the UNSC that only McCrea knew about, or was it something else? Maybe it was information that had the secret location of Earth on it, but if it was then why go to an outpost? Usually anything of that importance or classified stayed in the highest and most secretive of all military structures.

This was strange. They had to find out what this thing was captain McCrea may have, and what the Covenant were looking for, and also try and find a way of telling everyone else of what had happened today. However, that meant risking their place in this taskforce and, as John said, if anyone found out then they could find themselves out of the taskforce and even out of the UNSC altogether. Oh, this was a very bad situation.

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, Marcus set his sights on getting back to the barracks to rest and think about what could happen in the days following what had happened today at the New Haven outpost.


	11. Keva outpost

**The next day**

**Date April 7****th****, 2552**

**Location: half a mile from Keva outpost, twelve miles south of Axiom base, two miles east of New Haven.**

It was another beautiful day on Reach. The many colours of dawn were breaking in the sky and the air was warm with the heat. The seasons here on the planet were a little different than those on much of Earth. It would already begin to get warmer, like it was the summer, quite early on in the year rather the in the middle of the year. Though there was a gentle cooling breeze in the air so it was not completely like summer.

In the air above the ever stretching fields below, a large shape flew towards a small group of buildings not far ahead of it. It was a pelican. In the resting area were two taskforce soldiers, Marcus and Stinger, who were lying down on the seats, one either side of the resting area, fast asleep. It was only about 06:30am and most of the taskforce were still asleep in their beds back at the base.

Marcus and Stinger, however, had been woken up by John and told to board a pelican bound for Keva outpost, another UNSC base but was actually a place for the ER (Extra-terrestrial Reconnaissance) Stalker fighters to be base. However, like New Haven outpost yesterday, contact with the outpost had been lost and as the Covenant had been responsible for the attack on New Haven yesterday, it was most likely possible that Keva had suffered the same fate as New Haven so the taskforce had been dispatched to wipe out any Covenant that were likely to be at the base.

The co-pilot in the pelican's cog pit stood up and opened the cog pit door and stepped into the resting area. He walked over to Marcus and shook him slightly. Marcus groaned and groggily opened his eyes to see the co-pilot standing over him.

"C'mon, up you get, soldier," he said. "We're almost there,"

Marcus groaned and nodded and sat up as the co-pilot walked over to Stinger and shook him slightly. Stinger groaned and sat up and rubbed his eyes.

Marcus yawned and stretched his arms. "How long…until we get there?" he asked, yawning a little.

"A few minutes, so get ready," the co-pilot answered and he walked back into the cog pit.

Stinger groaned as he leant forward and reached under his seat and took out his battle rifle and loaded it with a clip of ammunition.

"I don't know why John had to make us leave so early," he complained.

Marcus nodded in agreement but said nothing. He instead looked out through the open resting area entrance at the passing fields. A few farmhouses were visible in the distance and a small road led underneath the pelican in the direction of the outpost it was heading to. For a moment, Marcus was lost in the beauty of this world. He had to admit it was not much, but it just reminded him of life back on Earth and…what life had been like on Takra before it was destroyed.

Marcus shook the scene out of mind and leant forward and reached under his seat and produced a battle rifle and a clip of ammunition. He loaded the ammunition into the weapon. Just as he finished, the co-pilot stuck his head through the cog pit door into the resting area again.

"Alright, guys get ready," he said. "We're approaching Keva outpost,"

Marcus and Stinger nodded and sat down on the end seats, gripping their battle rifles tightly, ready for the coming battle.

The pelican began to descend from the sky towards a small cluster of buildings. There were two half circular shaped buildings that were spaced about twenty feet from each (they were not joining) and courtyard was in the space between them. Thirty feet to the left of the left circular shaped building was a small cube shaped building with half of what had been a radio antennae sticking out of the top of it. A similar building was placed thirty feet to the right of the circular shaped building, only a small AA missile launcher turret was placed on the roof of this one. About sixty feet to the north of the buildings was a large circular metal door, about forty feet long and wide, built into the ground. It led to an underground hanger that could only be accessed through the half circular shaped buildings. As the pelican approached, the doors had scorch marks over them and there were several small chunks missing from the half circular shaped buildings.

"Damn!" the pilot whispered as he looked down at the outpost. "The Covenant must have really screwed up this place when they attacked,"

"I wonder if where they are?" the co-pilot asked. "Do you think they're underground?" he asked his comrade.

"Probably," the pilot replied. "Wonder what they're doing here? I mean, if they were going to attack Reach, they usually just throw in an army and a load of ships, not attack random outposts."

The co-pilot nodded in agreement. He had heard of the attack on the New Haven outpost yesterday and it had been met with confusion and puzzlement by the UNSC, save for the taskforce, who had not been told, obviously apart from those who had been sent to the outpost yesterday to clear out the Covenant there, and the order had given to all UNSC personal not to mention any word of what had happened yesterday to the taskforce. But what were the Covenant doing just randomly attacking outposts? Even though they had rarely done anything g like this before, as they would usually just send in an army as soon as a Human presence was detected on a world, they had attacked the same type of stations, but why had they attacked a radar station yesterday and then suddenly gone for an ER station today? It did not make a lot of sense. Something was definitely up here and they had to find out what. Maybe it would become visible after what happened here today.

As the pelican descended further towards the courtyard, the co-pilot caught site of something moving at the side entrance of the left circular shaped building. He squinted to try and determine what it was but the thing disappeared inside the building. At seeing this, concern began to fill him. If that was a Covenant soldier, then he was certain it had seen them and was now probably going to alert any other soldiers that a pelican was landing here.

"What is it?" the pilot asked upon seeing the concerned look on his co-pilot's face.

"I think I saw a Covenant soldier at the entrance to one of the buildings," he replied. "If it was a Covenant soldier, he just ran inside,"

The pilot swore under his breath. "Alright, we'll have to land now," he said. "Tell the other two,"

The co-pilot nodded and got up and stuck his head out of the cog pit door.

Alright, guys," he said, making Marcus and Stinger jump and look over their shoulders to face him. "We're gonna have to land early. I think the Covenant have seen us coming,"

Marcus and Stinger nodded and the co-pilot disappeared back into the cog pit.

"Well, battle for this outpost begins now," Stinger said, cocking his weapon. Marcus nodded and did the same. 

The two looked out through the resting area and watched as the ground came closer as the pelican descended towards it. Finally, when it was about ten feet above the ground, the pelican came to a halt and Marcus and Stinger stood up and jumped down from the craft to the ground.

Suddenly, a light blue blast flew past them, narrowly missing Stinger's head, and hit the ground. Shooting round, Stinger, looking under the wing of the pelican, saw a tall bulky figure with light blue armour standing in the entrance of the left half circular shaped building. A minor Elite. Two smaller figures lumbered either side of him. Grunts. The Elite roared something and pointed at the pelican and fired a few light blue blasts at the craft. The two Grunts followed their leader and fired several light green blasts from their plasma pistols at the pelican.

Marcus skidded to a halt next to Stinger.

"Co-pilot was right," Stinger told him.

"I wonder how many more Covenant are here," Marcus replied.

_"Alright, contact us when you're done," _came the co-pilot's voice from their ear radios. _"We'll fly around nearby and keep an eye out for any Covenant air support,"_

The wind was suddenly thrown up at them as the pelican rose into the air. When it had risen ten feet from where it had stopped to drop off the two taskforce soldiers, it flew off ahead and disappeared from sight behind the right half circular shaped building.

"Alright, let's go," Marcus said to Stinger.

The two ran towards the Covenant at the entrance to the left building, firing burst of ammo as they went. The bullets hit the Elites' armour shield and lit it up before finally breaking through it and embedding themselves in the Elite's chest and stomach. The creature roared loudly as it was thrown backwards onto the floor of the building but abruptly went quiet when it hit the floor and moved no more.

"AAAAHHHHHH!" the two Grunts screamed. "Leader dead! Run away!"

The two Grunts turned and ran back into the building, waving their arms about in the air in terror. Marcus and Stinger saw their chance and ran towards the building. When they reached the entrance, they just managed to catch a glimpse of one of the Grunts run through a doorway on the left wall that led to a flight of stairs the led down to…well, whatever was down there.

Marcus reloaded his weapon and looked around the interior of the building. It was covered with blast marks and the floor was covered with crates and ammunition scattered everywhere. A small hole was in the right wall, giving a view of the courtyard and the right half circular shaped building on the other side of the courtyard. A dead marine lay on the floor about ten feet on from the doorway where the Grunts had fled through. The Covenant had obviously wiped out everyone here like they had done yesterday at New Haven but what they were doing here was unknown.

Marcus and Stinger creped forward towards the door, placing themselves up against the wall either side of the door. Marcus poked his head through the door and looked right to see a flight of stairs lead down to a large square shaped landing in a small tunnel that led down right diagonally further underground, most likely to an underground hanger for the ER Stalker fighters. A large square shaped platform, about the same size as the landing, was placed next to the landing. Two small shapes were standing at the end of the platform, looking down over at the edge. A taller figure with a shield was standing a few feet behind them, scratching It's chin and gazing around from side to side. A Jackal.

"Looks like there's a strong Covenant presence here already," Stinger said, looking down at the Covenant.

"I have a feeling there'll be a lot more of 'em down in the hanger," Marcus replied. He reloaded his weapon. "Okay, let's go down the steps quietly and take out the Covenant then we'll head down into the hanger and mop up any more that are left,"

Stinger nodded and, after reloading his weapon, followed Marcus as they crept into the stairwell and down the steps towards the landing at the bottom, their weapons raised and their fingers on their weapons' triggers. As they neared the bottom, they stopped about half-way down the stairwell as the Jackal stopped scratching It's chin and looked in their direction as if alerted to their presence. The two aimed their weapons at it and got ready to fire in case it screeched. The Jackal leaned forward a little and the two saw It's orange eyes squint. They breathed in and half pushed down the triggers of their weapons, ready to fire.

Then, the Jackal began to walk forward towards the stairwell. Marcus went wide-eyed and pushed down further on his trigger, which was just micrometres from firing a burst of ammo at the creature. What was it doing though? Had it actually seen them, because if it had then it would have fired on them. Why had it not fired on them if it had seen them?

Then, the Jackal stopped at the bottom of the stairwell and faced the left wall and half raised It's hand before it paused. Marcus and Stinger watched with curiosity, but kept their guard up, as the creature opened It's fingers a little and slowly began to move It's raised hand towards the wall. Then, quick as a flash, it threw It's hand forward and grabbed something and brought the hand up to It's mouth and dropped something in it and the Jackal began to chew. Marcus breathed a quiet sigh of relief. It had only caught something on the wall, probably a bug. At least it had not seen them, which he was glad had happened.

It appeared he had thought to soon that he and Stinger were here without the enemy knowing. As the Jackal had gone to turn to walk back out across the landing towards the platform, it suddenly paused again and turned It's head, only this time so it was looking behind it, it's large purple eyes set directly on Marcus and Stinger.

"Open fire!" Marcus shouted.

Two bursts of ammo exploded in the air, followed by an ear splitting screech as the Jackal was thrown backwards onto the landing floor. A pool of dark purple/black blood began to form underneath the creature. It was dead. The two Grunts, having jumped at the sound of the gunfire, shot round and saw their two enemies running down the steps onto the landing. They screamed and went to fire but were quickly put to rest by another two bursts of ammo from Marcus and Stinger.

"Alright," Stinger muttered as he walked onto the platform and looked around. "How do we get this thing to move?"

"Here," Marcus replied from behind and Stinger to see him standing over at the wall next to the entrance to the stairwell from the landing where a small control panel was placed.

He pressed a small red button on the control panel. At once, the platform jolted and a loud unlocking sound filled the tunnel and the platform began to descend down into the tunnel. Marcus quickly rushed over and stepped onto it and joined Stinger at the other end of the platform and looked down the tunnel towards the bottom, which was about sixty feet away. They could see another landing, next to a large square shaped hole for the platform to fit into and become part of the floor, which gradually grew bigger as they approached it. It was much too big to be a regular landing so it was probable that this landing was part of the hanger floor.

"What do you s'pose the Covenant are doing underground?" Stinger asked, not taking his eyes of the bottom of the tunnel.

"Probably clearing a way for their ships to land," Marcus answered. "But It's still strange," he added. "I mean, what they've done here is exactly what they did at New Haven yesterday. They attack a base and yet they don't destroy it,"

"I think they're probably looking for McCrea," Stinger said, looking at Marcus. "Because he was at New Haven a few days ago, but what I find so strange about here is that I asked John if captain McCrea had been to any other outposts anywhere near New Haven and he said no."

"Then the Covenant are probably here to scout out the terrain and find any info about our strength on Reach," Marcus replied.

Stinger nodded and resumed looking back down towards the bottom of the tunnel, which was now just twenty feet away. The two could now see more of the floor on from the hole for the platform and saw several large craft with seat-like main sections with a small see through door about half-way up the front of the craft. Two small engines stuck out of the back and coming out of the sides were two thin mechanical legs. The craft were about eight feet wide and about fifteen feet long. These were the ER stalker craft.

A few moments later, the platform finally came to a halt as it stopped in the hole. It jolted slightly and locked itself into place. Marcus and Stinger stepped off it and gazed around the hanger. It was a large square shape, about seventy feet long and just under eighty feet wide with a large circular hole in the ceiling, which the hole mostly took up, leading up into a tunnel that led up the mechanical doors that the two had seen when they had seen when they had landed. There were, or had been, about ten other stalker craft scattered about the hanger, but most were either now a pile of wreckage or were lying on their sides or tops. A few dead workers were scattered about the hanger floor, some with weapons either in their hands or near them. They had obviously tried to put up a fight but the Covenant had just overwhelmed them.

"Set up the beacon!"

Marcus and Stinger stopped dead and half crouched and ran ahead towards one of the stalkers that had been turned on It's side, revealing the bottom of the craft that was covered in scorch marks from where blasts had struck it. When they reached it, Marcus crept towards the end of the craft and poked his head out from behind it and looked across the hanger.

There, about twenty five feet ahead of him, was a major Elite with four minor Grunts. The four grunts were gathered in a circle around a metallic device that had been placed on the hanger floor and Marcus saw their arms moving to and from it as if they were attacking it. What was this metallic device?

He moved his head back behind the stalker and turned to face Stinger. "A major Elite and four minor Grunts and they're all gathered around something on the floor," he told him.

"What is it they're gathered around?" Stinger asked him as he moved up next to him to look at the Covenant squad.

"No idea," Marcus answered, looking back out at the Covenant. "We need to take 'em out and get to it,"

"How? If we just attack 'em then they'll most likely grab it and take it with them behind any cover,"

Stinger was right, they could not just open fire on the Covenant. Even though there was a strong chance they would easily pick them off, it was also probable that the Covenant squad would take whatever that metallic object was with them behind cover and it would be far more difficult to obtain. After all, that thing could be a clue to what they were doing on Reach.

Question was: How were they to defeat this Covenant squad? Marcus looked out at the Covenant squad again. The major Elite was the one worrying them so they had to deal with him first, but the Grunts might also take the object. Both had to be dealt with quickly, but how?

Then, an idea popped into Marcus' head. Surely it would work. Yes, it _would_ work, if it all went as he wanted it to. He turned to face Stinger, who had moved back behind him against the stalker.

"We'll distract the Grunts and then take care of the Elite," he explained. "Afterwards, the Grunts'll be easy to take out,"

"How do you plan to distract the Grunts?" Stinger asked him.

Marcus paused for a second, as if trying to find an answer to Stinger's question, before he knelt down and picked up a piece of the stalker's side armour.

"This is how," he answered.

He turned and looked around the hanger for another stalker that had the front facing him. He found one. It was about fifteen feet away, easily within range, but was turned on It's side, but the front was facing it, and with the front was the glass door. Marcus brought back his hand a little and took aim. He squinted a little and licked his lip as if hoping it would hit It's target, which he was doing anyway, and then threw the piece of metal.

SMASH!

"What the?" the two heard the Elite shout and they moved to the other end of the stalker and poked their heads out from behind it to watch the next actions of the Covenant squad.

"Get over there and find the source of that noise!" the Elite ordered.

"Me scared," one of the Grunts whimpered.

"Just get over there now!" the Elite growled and kicked the Grunt in the back, throwing it forward onto the floor.

Groaning, the Grunt joined It's three comrades and lumbered over to the stalker. The Elite growled and muttered something under his breath, but it and the others were completely unaware of two of their enemies just metres from them.

Marcus nodded at Stinger and they raised their weapons, aiming directly at the major Elite. They rested their fingers on their weapons' triggers and pressed down.

A barrage of gunfire exploded in the air. The Elite, having been taken by surprise, roared loudly as It's armour shield was quickly disabled and the bullets embedded themselves in It's torso. The force of the bullets impacting it threw the creature to the floor and it moved no more.

"AAAAHHHHHH!" the Grunts screamed. "Leader dead! ENEMY! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

The four grunts quickly scattered around the hanger, waving their arms in the air in terror. Marcus and stinger ran out from behind the stalker and fired on them, killing all four of them.

When the last Grunt had been killed, the two lowered their weapons and looked over at the metallic device the Covenant squad had been working on. It was a flat circular shape with a small tower in the middle of it. At the top of the small tower, which was about ten inches tall, was a small orb that was glowing blue. The two gingerly approached it. Marcus stopped next to it and prodded it with his foot, just in case it was not a bomb or booby trapped. Thankfully, it was not.

"What do you think it is?" Stinger asked him as he stopped next to him, looking down at the object with unease.

"No idea," Marcus replied. "I definitely know It's not a bomb, but other than that, I have no idea what this thing is or could be,"

Stinger knelt down on one knee and examined the object with his eyes as if they would figure out what type of device this thing was. It was hard though. Maybe Alice might be able to figure this out when they took this back to base, that was if John would let them.

Marcus placed a finger on the radio in his ear.

"Pelican Bravo 066, this is Marcus," he said.

_"Marcus, we copy, over," _a voice replied from his ear radio.

"We read you. We're in the underground hanger and ready for extraction with a Covenant device as cargo,"

_"A Covenant device? Any idea what kind of device?"  
><em>  
>"Unknown. We just found a group of Covenant setting it up. We know it's not a bomb, but we don't have a clue on whatever else it could be,"<p>

_"Roger that. We'll hover into the hanger and pick you up," _

"Roger that, over," Marcus lowered his hand from him ear and looked up the tunnel above him at the mechanical doors far above him.

A few moments later, the doors opened and daylight flooded in for a second, before the large shape of the pelican appeared in the hole and descended down towards the hanger floor. When it reached the bottom of the tunnel, the landing gear unfolded themselves and Marcus and Stinger, who picked up the device, which was quite heavy for something being small, moved out of the way as the craft touched down on the floor. The two then ran to the back of the craft and climbed on board and sat down on the resting area seats next to each other, both looking down at the device which Stinger held in his hands.

The co-pilot stepped out of the cog pit into the resting area.

"What the Hell is that thing?" he asked when he saw the device.

"No idea," Marcus replied. "We just found a Covenant squad setting it down on the floor a few minutes ago,"

The co-pilot hmmed and nodded. "Maybe someone back at base'll find out what it is,"

Marcus and Stinger nodded in agreement. Someone had to know something about this device, even if it was not a great deal.

"Alright, we're heading off," the pilot's voice called from the cog pit.

The co-pilot walked back into the cog pit and sat down. A few moments later, the pelican jolted slightly and rose back into the tunnel, partly blocking out all light into the resting area, and the landing gear folded themselves back up. A moment later, daylight flooded into the resting area, revealing it to be a clear blue sky with a bright shining sun to Marcus and Stinger and they withdrew their attention from the device to look out across the landscape below and watched as the pelican flew away from Keva outpost and back in the direction of the base.

Another mystery had befallen the UNSC on Reach and it was going to need to be solved quickly before another befell them.


	12. Difficulty in a secret

**One hour later**

**Location: **_**Axiom**_** main base**

Marcus and Stinger's pelican descended towards the main base, coming to a halt about twenty feet above the ground. The landing gear unfolded themselves and the craft descended to the ground, coming to a halt as the metal of the landing gear made contact with the surface of Reach. Marcus, who was holding the Covenant device, and Stinger jumped down from the craft to the ground and, as if on cue, sergeant John was there to greet them.

"Good work you two," he said. "Keva won't be a problem for us anymore and-"

He suddenly paused when his eyes caught sight of the device in Marcus' hands. He looked at it and, without asking, took it from Marcus and examined it.

"Where did you get this?" he asked them.

"We found it in the underground hanger at Keva outpost," Stinger told him. "The Covenant were doing something to it, probably setting it up, and we killed 'em and took it,"

John 'hmmed' and ran his hand over the object, stopping at he touched the orb at the top of the small tower in the middle of the object and closed his hand around it.

"We'll get out scientists to try and find out what this thing is," he said. "In the meantime, you two get back to the barracks and get some rest, and remember: _keep quiet_!"

Marcus and Stinger looked at each other and Stinger shook his head and walked towards the barracks. Marcus, however, did not join him. Instead, he walked away from the barracks after John. He needed to speak to him, privately.

"Try and figure what it is," John said to a tall blonde haired scientist, who nodded and took the device and walked towards a large building about fifty metres away.

He turned and walked towards the nearby cube shaped building. As he reached it, in which the door opened automatically for him to enter, a hand rested on his shoulder from behind and he turned to see Marcus standing there.

"Marcus!" John exclaimed, surprised. "What are you doing? I thought I told you to go and get some rest,"

"I will," Marcus replied. "But first, I need to talk to you, sir,"

John looked at him for a moment as if he were crazy before he sighed in annoyance and nodded.

"Alright, inside," he said.

The two walked into the building and the door closed behind them. A holo-light a few inches below the ceiling instantly turned on, lighting up the room. John walked behind the desk and sat down.

"What is it you need to take to me about?" he asked Marcus.

"It's…It's," Marcus began. He paused for a moment, trying to find the courage to tell John what he wanted to tell him.

"Yes?" John urged him.

"It's…It's this…It's me keeping quit," Marcus managed to say. He sighed and rubbed his hand down his face. "I can't keep doing it, sir. It's not right,"

John sighed and stood up. "Marcus, you know why you can't tell anyone else,"

"I know that, but, to be honest with you, sir, I don't care whether I get kicked out of this taskforce or the UNSC. I just don't feel It's right that…that me and the others who have faced the Covenant…that we have to keep quiet about it,"

John sighed and placed a hand on his desk. "Marcus, to be honest with you, if I were in your place and had the chance to tell the others in the taskforce, trust me, I would. But, the UNSC High Command has ordered me to tell you and the others that have faced the Covenant that you can't tell anyone else in the taskforce, who has not faced the Covenant yet, about the Covenant presence here."

"No!" Marcus half-shouted, shaking his head in disbelief as a look of anger etched across his face. "That's not fair! How can you obey orders like this!"

"Alright, that enough!" John shouted, silencing Marcus, but not taking the look of shock and anger off his face. He took a deep breath to calm down and stepped towards Marcus. "Marcus," he said. "I don't want to keep you and taskforce in the dark, but I have orders to follow. No, don't interrupt me, Marcus. Now listen! We have over sixty taskforce members, including yourself, as our last hope in this war. If you go and open your mouth about this, then we're under threat of taskforce members, I don't know who or how many, going on solo missions. I can't have that and neither can the High Command, okay? Now you are to go back to the barracks and get some rest and keep quiet, and I mean it!" he concluded, adding a dangerous tone on the last four words.

Marcus went to reply but paused and sighed and nodded and turned and walked towards the door, which opened automatically as he approached it. As he stepped into the doorway, he looked over his shoulder at John one last time and shook his head and walked back outside, the door closing behind him.

John sighed and walked back behind his desk and sat down and placed his hands on the top of his head. This was getting too much for him. He did, in a way, agree with Marcus. It was not fair that the taskforce had to be kept in the dark from the Covenant presence, but he had to take into account that there was the threat that some of the taskforce members were going to go after the Covenant, something that could threaten the taskforce and possibly even the entire Human race.

He would just have to hope that Marcus did not open his mouth and kept quiet about this.


	13. Reminding you of the risks

**Later that night**

Night time on Reach was generally a very beautiful time, especially in the spring and summer when most nights were clear of clouds. Tonight was one of those nights. The sky was completely clear, giving anyone on the ground an amazing view of the thousands and thousands of stars that shone in the night sky. It was beautiful to see this sight and was, without a doubt, sparking the thought in the minds of some of the soldiers on this planet: _Even in war there are beautiful things_ and for tonight it just looked as though they were right. It just seemed as though for tonight, the universe had forgotten about the war and peace had returned. If only that was what was really happening.

Below on the surface of the planet a few hundred feet from the main base building was a small park, named Jura Park, about one hundred feet long and wide. A single large path ran through the middle of the park from one end to the other with about four smaller paths coming off it, two on the left and two on the right. Grass covered the ground around the paths and trees were set in lines along the smaller paths. Several benches were scattered about the path. It was a peaceful place and right now it was empty.

Well, almost empty. There were two people in the park. A man and a woman dressed in special bodysuits. It was Marcus and Anya. Anya had asked Marcus if she wanted to come for a walk in the park with him after she had asked John for permission, which he had given only they were to only go to the park and nowhere else, which they agreed to.

The two walked side by side, Anya having her arm hooked around Marcus', down one of the side paths along the right of the main pathway. She gazed lovingly up at the stars as if they were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, which was partly true, though it was not _the_, but _one of_the most beautiful things she had seen.

"It's so beautiful," she said, resting her head on Marcus' arm.

"Yeah, it is," Marcus replied, also looking up at the stars. He tried looked happy but there was a hint of nervousness in his eyes.

That nervousness was what he had been doing for the past few days. He had been out in fighting Covenant recon teams at two outposts. The first one had been yesterday at New Haven outpost and the second had been this morning at Keva outpost not far from New Haven outpost. What he was nervous about though was that no one else in the taskforce, save for Stinger (Simon), Tanya, Alice and Tyler, who had taken part on these missions with him (Stinger taking part in the mission this morning), knew about the Covenant presence here on Reach, and that was because they had been ordered not to tell anyone else about this by John. He and his friends who had been on these missions were furious and shocked about this. The others deserved to know about this but no. They were to be kept in the dark. Sooner or later, though, they had to know.

_What if…? _Marcus thought as the two reached a bench situated on the left side of the path about half-way down it.

What if…he could tell Anya about what was going on? John or no UNSC High Command officer was around to stop him and like he just thought to himself, they had to know and he could start with Anya.

"Um…Anya?" Marcus said, looking down at her, snapping her out of her beauty gaze up at the stars.

She looked up at him. "Yes?" she inquired and she saw the worry on Marcus' face. "Are you okay, Marcus?"

Marcus looked down at the floor for a moment before he looked at her again, meeting her questionable gaze and waiting for an answer, worry filling her eyes as well. She had been a bit suspicious about him for the past two days as well. She had seen him leave the barracks yesterday with a group and arrive back some time later and then he and one his friends had arrived back whilst the others were getting up. There was something going on about him.

"Um…" Marcus began, trailing off quickly. It was hard to explain this even though he was pressuring himself to tell her. "It's about…It's about me and…and the others," he told her.

"What about you and the others?" she asked him.

"We…um. We're leaving the…the barracks because-"

"Alright," a voice said from the darkness, making them jump and Anya grabbed Marcus, scared. The two looked up the path from where they had come from to see John standing a few feet from them. He walked up to them. "Walk's over," he said. "Anya, get back to the barracks," he said to her. "I need to have a word with Marcus,"

Anya looked from John to Marcus and back again. It was obvious she was a bit wary about what was going on here, but she decided it was best not to argue or question her superior and she got up and, after taking one more look at Marcus, walked away from them. Marcus and John watched her go.

When she disappeared from sight, John turned to face Marcus, glaring at him. Marcus tensed himself, waiting for John to grab him.

Amazingly, John just sighed and sat down next to him.

"Marcus, I thought you and me agreed not to spread any word of this," he said to him.

"Sergeant, y'know I can't agree to this," he replied. "It's not fair on the others,"

"Marcus, you don't know how serious this is! I know It's not fair, I agree with you, but you have to realise that you can't go around opening your mouth about what is happening,"

"I know that!" Marcus half-shouted. He buried his face in his hands for a moment before he sighed and sat up and faced John. "I'm sorry, sir but we can't just keep it secret from the others. They're gonna have to know eventually,"

"And they will. But right now, we have to keep this limited to us and the rest of that group of yours, okay," John paused and looked up at the sky for a moment before looking back at Marcus. "And I will tell you this," he said in a tone that sounded much more dangerous than before. "If you try and tell anyone else about this, you and your friends'll be thrown in jail, and I _really _mean it this time, okay?"

Marcus stared at John for a moment, taking in what he had told him. By the sounds of his tone, John was serious about this. If he told anyone about the Covenant recon teams, then he and his friends could face imprisonment. That would not be good for him or his friends and right now, the UNSC needed everyone they could get.

After a moment, he sighed and nodded "Yes, sir,"

John nodded. "Now get back to the barracks and tell no one, especially Anya, why I needed to speak to you. And remember this time: _keep quiet_!" he added a dangerous and serious tone on the last to words before he got up and walked away from Marcus, cutting across the grass, towards the entrance to the park.

Marcus sat on the bench for another moment, watching John go, before he decided to listen to John and got up and walked back towards the main base building. What John had told him ran over and over again in his mind. He could not believe that John was trying to keep this quiet about the Covenant presence on Reach. He did not understand how or why it was so important and it was not fair! The others had a right to know and they had to know, but he was putting himself and the others in his group, and probably even the entire taskforce, at risk. He sighed again as he walked through the park entrance just a few feet behind John, who did not turn to look over his shoulder at him.

He was going to have to find a way to explain this to the others in the taskforce. How was going to be difficult and actually telling them was not going to be any easier, probably even more difficult, but he _was_ going to tell them, but he may have to leave it for a while until John decided to no longer keep an eye on him.


	14. Attack on the Covenant battle cruiser

**Two days later**

**Date: April 9****th****, 2552**

**Location: Zura mountains, 100 miles north of **_**Axiom**_** main base**

**Time: 11:50am**

Another beautiful day had dawned for Reach. The sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky and a gentle breeze blew in the air. The perfect spring weather with a little heat in the air to add to it. it was an especially good time in the mountain regions of Reach for the snow, which had fallen there several months earlier, was beginning to melt and soon it would be suitable for climbing again. Well, it would have been were it not for the threat of a Covenant attack.

In the sky that surrounded the Zura Mountains, a large barricade chain of mountains, a large shape flew towards a small pass with a pathway going through it. It was a pelican. On board were Marcus, Tyler, Tanya, Stinger and Alice. They were coming here on another mission on the Covenant presence here.

For the past two days, the UNSC had not heard anything more from any outposts around the planet, at first leading them to believe that the Covenant had either given up sending recon teams to the planet entirely or knew that there were Humans on Reach and were preparing a fleet to strike at the planet. Then, this morning, a large object was detected flying into Reach's atmosphere by a radar post in the mountains. The UNSC did not know what it was but they needed to find out and so Marcus and his friends were once again called up by John to be sent out to scout out whatever this thing was and report back what it was.

"So what do you think this thing could be?" Tyler asked.

"Well, they said it was something big. Probably a Covenant ship," Tanya replied.

"Impossible," Stinger told her. "I mean, wouldn't the orbital space platforms have detected it?"

"If it had just flown in like a normal ship would do, then yes," Alice piped up. "But, apparently, this one just appeared and flew in so if it a Covenant ship, then it would have had to slip-space into the planet's atmosphere to not be detected by the orbital defence platforms,"

"That is a fair point," Tyler replied. "What d'you think, Marcus? Marcus?"

The group looked over at him to see him staring out through the resting area entrance at the mountains as they passed them.

"Marcus?" Tyler said again and this time, he turned to face them.

"Sorry," he replied.

"Are you alright, man?" Stinger asked him.

"Yeah, I'm fine,"

"Are you still worried about John said to you?"

Marcus paused for a moment, as if taking in what had been said to him, and nodded. "Yeah,"

He had told them all what had happened the day after he had returned from the walk with Anya in Jura Park near the base, which, thankfully, had not been overheard by John or anyone else. He and the others still found it ridiculous that had to keep this secret. The others had a right to know about this as well, but the UNSC at the base were preventing them from telling the other members of the taskforce, all because they were worried about them splitting up and going after the Covenant, which Marcus doubted would happen. If they just told them that the Covenant were searching the planet or sending recon teams to scout out It's surface, then the taskforce would surely stick together and prepare to fight them.

_But how do I know that will happen? _A voice said in his head.

He sighed. That voice was right. He had only _doubted _that the taskforce members would start splitting up and going after the Covenant on their own solo missions, but that did not mean he was right. For some reason, he did partly believe that John was right to stop the others from knowing. What if… What if he was right after all?

The cog pit door opened and the co-pilot stuck his head out.

"Alright guys, get ready," he said. "We're dropping you in on a small plateau near the start of the pathway,"

The co-pilot disappeared back into the cog pit, closing the door behind him, and the squad began collecting their weapons from under their seats. As Marcus took out a battle rifle from under his seat and loaded a clip of ammunition into it, he looked out through the entrance to the ship and saw the mountains around them rise as if they were growing. The ground, a small thin pathway only about fifteen or so feet across, grew closer to them until they were over a large clearing. The pelican came to a halt about fifteen feet above the ground and lowered towards the ground, the landing gear unfolding as it neared the surface of the plateau.

A few moments later, the pelican jolted slightly as the landing gear made contact with the ground. The squad got up from their seats and jumped down onto the half-snow/half-rock ground. The pelican hovered back up into the air, the landing gear folding themselves back up, and flew back the way it had come.

"_Contact us when you've reached this thing," _came the pilot's voice over their ear radios. _"Report back what it is," _and within a few moments the craft disappeared behind a mountain a few hundred metres away.

"Let's get going," Stinger said.

The group walked towards across the plateau and onto the pathway, which was about twenty feet wide, towards the small pass. Tanya slipped a little as she was about half-way down the path on some snow that had not melted and came close to the edge of the path, which overlooked an enormous drop either side of it that led to a sheer and rocky side far below, probably a few hundred feet. Afterwards, she kept away from any piles of snow on the path to make sure she would not fall over again.

When they reached the pass between two small mountains, they walked through it and found themselves on a large plateau, about forty feet wide, with a rock pathway that led right and descended down at a fifteen degree angle towards another large plateau, which was about twice as large as the plateau the squad were on, that also had a large pathway descending down from it, only it descended down from the front rather than the side to an enormous clearing about seventy feet below.

"Whoa!" Tyler exclaimed in a shocked voice.

The others looked at him to see what he was so shocked about and quickly found out why.

About three thousand feet ahead of them, at the end of a large valley between a chain of small mountains, was a large shape that seemed to be hovering near a large mountain. It was thousands of feet long with two large spires sticking out of the bottom and pointing diagonally down leftwards at the curved front of the craft. It had large engines at the back and had a silver armoured coating. It was a Covenant CCS battle cruiser.

The squad moved to the edge of the forward edge of the plateau and lay down, looking at the craft. Movement below caught Marcus' eyes and he looked down to see hundreds of shapes moving about on the bottom of the ground far below. Some were figures whilst others were instantly recognizable as Covenant vehicles, such as wraiths and ghosts. A few parked banshees were just visible below, as they were nearer to the CCS battle cruiser and were slightly and many figures were moving about among the vehicles on the ground. Marcus scanned the entire ground below with his eyes, which the others had just noticed, taking in everything that was down there.

Then, his eyes caught something far away to the far right of the ground near a large mountain, one of the biggest in the Zula mountain area, were a large group of Covenant soldiers gathered around the entrance to a large cave. He could make out the large shapes of three Hunters at the front of the mass of Covenant but the others were a mystery, most probably Elites and Grunts and Jackals, but he was mainly focused on the Hunters, who were standing very close up to the end of the cave, so he could only just see them. What were they doing?

Standing up, Marcus ran down the rock pathway that led onto the plateau below.

"Marcus, what are you doing?" Stinger's voice called but he ignored him.

When Marcus reached the bottom of the pathway, he moved to the right edge of it and laid down and looked over at the cave. As he was closer to it now, he had a better view of it and the Covenant inside it. He could see the Hunters were moving their arms against the rock wall. Were they…were they digging?

"What the Hell," Marcus whispered to himself as he sat up a little.

"What is it?" Tanya's voice asked and he looked up at the other plateau to see the rest of the squad running down towards him, crouching down beside him when they reached him.

Marcus nodded over towards the cave and the group looked and saw the Hunters.

"Wonder what they're doing?" Alice said.

"God knows," Tyler replied. "Well, what are we gonna do about this ship?" he asked, looking at the enormous Covenant craft.

"We'll have to leave that to base," Marcus replied and he placed a finger on the radio in his ear. "Bravo 725, this is Marcus, over,"

_"We hear you, Marcus," _a voice replied from his radio. _"What have you guys found?"_

"A Covenant CCS battle cruiser," he explained. "And a host of Covenant ground forces. We've also found a group of Hunters digging in a large cave in one of the mountains near our location."

A 'hmm' emitted out of the radio before the voice spoke up again.

"_Alright, roger that. Hold your position, we'll relay your finding back to base,"_

The radio went silent and Marcus, lowering his finger from his ear, looked back over at the Hunters in the cave. A thousand questions were racing through his mind about them and the Covenant here. _What were they doing? Why were they here?_ _Why were they, as it looked, digging in a cave? And if they were digging, what were they looking for? _Not one of them had an answer.

"What d'you think they're looking for?" he heard Stinger ask. "That is if they're digging," he added.

"No idea," Tanya replied. "What I want to know is why they have a CCS battle cruiser here and why there isn't a fleet bearing down on the planet,"

_KZK… "Marcus, are you there, over?" _

Marcus placed a finger back on the radio in his ear. "Yeah, I'm here," he replied.

_"We've just contacted base. You and your squad have been given new orders. Your to board that craft and find out what the Covenant are doing here,"_

"What!" Marcus exclaimed, drawing the attention of his squad members. He sucked his teeth and ducked low, believing that he had inadvertently attracted the attention of the Covenant forces on the ground below. He paused for a second and poked his head over the edge of the plateau. Luckily, the Covenant were not coming over to their position to investigate the source of the shouting. Breathing a sigh of relief, he moved back away from the edge and sat up, ignoring questions from the others over what was wrong. "What do you mean we have to board it?" he demanded furiously in an angry, but quiet voice.

"_Well, command needs to know what they're doing here and seeing as you guys are near it, you're can do that for them,"_

"Well, can we at least have some help?" Marcus asked hopefully. "A few squads of marines or some air support?"

_"No. I asked command that and they said they can't risk arousing suspicion back at the base. Plus, they're scared that the Covenant will either make a run for it or call for help if we send in a large force against them," _Marcus growled through gritted teeth upon hearing this. _"Sorry, Marcus, but we have been told to give you guys a scorpion tank. That should help you. We've got it now and we're heading to your location. ETA: ten minutes,"_

The radio went silent. Marcus did lighten up a little upon hearing they would, at least, have a scorpion tank to aid them in this mission, but it would be a lot more helpful if they help from the UNSC. Sighing, he lowered his hand from his ear and turned to his squad.

"We're going to have to launch an attack on the ship," he told them, receiving a few shocked looks at him and the group. "But we're, at least, gonna have a scorpion tank to help us,"

"What about any air support or marine support?" Alice asked him.

"No, I was told that command doesn't want to attract any unwanted attention from the others back at the base and they think the Covenant'll try and make a run for it or call for help," Marcus replied.

The other squad members either sighed in annoyance or groaned. They were doing this on their own! It was stupid and ridiculous! Why were they being ordered to attack a Covenant CCS battle cruiser that was most likely jam packed with Covenant soldiers? It was just ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous!

"How long do we have to wait until the pelican arrives with the tank?" Tyler asked Marcus.

"About ten minutes," he replied, looking back at the Covenant near the cave.

All they could do for the moment was watch and see if anything happened until the pelican arrived with the tank.

**Ten minutes later**

"How far are we into the mountainside?"

"Not far, sir,"

"Keep moving! Our prophets grow impatient!"

"Yes, sir,"

At the head of the mass of Covenant soldiers, behind the Hunters alongside two major Elites, were a group of three Elites dressed in gold armour. They were armed with energy swords with the activators clipped onto the side of the armour on their waists and were giving orders in barks or shouts. It was not hard to tell that these Elites were some kind of masters. They were zealot Elites, the so-called head of the Covenant forces on the ground and were a kind of loyalty clan of the Elites, set up to make sure their soldiers stayed loyal to their prophets. They were also a kind of special forces who were usually sent on secret missions to extract or take any artefacts from their Human enemies, particularly if they were linked in any way to their gods. Who these gods were the Covenant followed, the Humans did not know but to be honest they really could not care whether the Covenant were following a religious deity or not. They just wanted to survive.

One of the major Elites ran over to the Hunters and barked out a command to them. The Hunters began moving their hands, which on one was the huge metal swords, but on the other where the enormous plasma cannon would be was a large drill-like device that was shearing away through the rock. The three Hunters had been cutting and digging away at the mountainside for some time now, starting almost as soon as the ship had landed. They were hoping to break through into the mountain where they believed something that was connected to their gods in a way was placed and on their prophets' orders, they were to find it and bring it back.

One of the zealot Elites gazed up at the mountain as if awed by It's majestic majesty. It was well over two thousand feet high from where they were and they were only near the top! The entire thing was probably about six, seven, maybe even eight or nine thousand feet tall. If the Elite was to stand on top of the mountain and have the others removed, he would be able to see for tens of miles in every direction. A sight that would be truly unforgettable.

"Sir!" the major Elite said, running back up to the zealot Elites. "We have almost broken through the wall. The artefact is within reach!"

"Good," he replied and walked forward with his two brothers towards the Hunters and stood behind them, staring through the gap between the middle and left Hunter as they cut away at the rock. The gleam and dedication to his mission was blazing away in his eyes like a fire. They were almost there. Just a few more metres of cutting through rock and they would have completed their mission and they would be a step closer to their ultimate goal of beco-

BOOM! The mass of Covenant shot round, the Hunters stopped carving and also turned, one of them breaking the drill on It's arm by scraping it against the rock by turning at a fast speed, to see a wraith explode in a fireball. Then, their eyes rested on a large shape moving down the pathway from a plateau towards the ground. It was a Human scorpion tank!

"Kill them!" one of the zealots roared.

Inside the scorpion tank, Marcus looked at the holographic screen of the outside that was hovering above the control panel in front of him. He could hear gunfire from outside, indicating that the other taskforce members were open firing on the Covenant as well, and he looked at the holographic screen and saw several Covenant soldiers fall to the ground, dead. Others ran about in a panic mass, desperate to get to their vehicles and attack the intruding tank.

Marcus aimed the main cannon at a wraith about forty feet away and fired a shot, which made the tank shake slightly. The front of the wraith exploded in a fireball, throwing large pieces of armour and the mechanical insides everywhere, some landing on unfortunate Covenant soldiers and crushing them completely. A Jackal about twenty feet in front of the tank stopped and fired a blast at the tank, only to screech loudly and be thrown backwards into the ground by a burst of ammo from outside.

"_Shit!" _a voice shouted from outside, which he recognized as Alice's, and the hatch above Marcus was opened by a hand and Stinger's face appeared.

"Marcus, we got Hunters to the right," he warned.

Marcus nodded and turned the main cannon right, the image on the holographic screen moving in that direction as well. When he had turned it about 45 degrees, he stopped as the image on the holographic screen in front of him showed three large creatures running towards the tank, their metal swords brought back slightly, ready to swing them at their Human enemies. Marcus fired another shot at the Hunters, hitting one and throwing it backwards onto the ground with a crash. Gunfire, much louder this time as the hatch was still open, erupted outside and several yells and roars erupted all around the tank. Another shot from the main cannon flew out at the Hunters, hitting the Hunter that had been in the middle of the three and throwing that one to the ground about twenty feet in front of the first Hunter that was killed.

"Oh crap! Reverse, Marcus! Reverse!" came Tyler's voice

He did not need telling twice. The last Hunter, to which Marcus could see on the holographic screen, was just a few metres from the tank and was getting close to swinging It's metal sword at the tank. As the tank moved back towards the bottom of the pathway that led down from the plateau, the four taskforce members fired on the Hunter as it approached them. The bullets pounded loudly as they impacted on the metal armour on the creature and on the metal of what was attached to It's arms. The Hunter was just ten feet, It's metal sword arm bought back fully and ready to swing. The squad members on the sides of the tank began to panic and were moving away from the sides so as not to be thrown into the air when the sword impacted the vehicle.

BOOM! Another shell shot out of the main cannon at the Hunter, hitting it in the side of the head. The Hunter roared loudly as it was thrown backwards onto the ground with a crash that shook the ground slightly and it did not get up again. However, the shell colliding with the side of the Hunter's head had only destroyed part of it. What had not been destroyed by impacting the Hunter flew on through the air toward the mountainside. Then, with a loud boom, the remnants of the shell hit the rock wall at the end of the cave, crumbling it into dust.

Marcus was about to drive the tank on towards the CCS battle cruiser when his eyes rested on the cave again. Though it was far away, at a distance of about eighty metres, he noticed that there was a kind of silver colour at the end of the cave. What was it? Should he drive over and investigate what it was?

"Marcus, we got 'em on the run!" came Stinger's voice. "Let's push on!"

Marcus sighed. _Looks like I'll have to find out what it is later _he thought and he drove the tank forward again towards the battle cruiser.

This time, the Covenant soldiers were more prepared. The squad's tank had not gotten fifty feet before a mortar blast landed on the ground about five feet to their right and exploded. Ahead of them was a wraith. Another mortar blast shot up out of the top of the vehicle and landed behind the tank, shaking it slightly. That was another close call, but they might not be as lucky next time. Marcus aimed the main cannon at the wraith and fired a shot. The shell blew right through the side armour of the vehicle and exploded, blowing off the entire left side of the wraith. The remains of the vehicle fell to the ground, no longer of any use to either side. The tank drove on again.

From then on, it was like ploughing through walls made of matchsticks. The sudden attack seemed to have startled much of the Covenant on the ground, even the Elites, who had mostly fled back towards the safety of their ship along with most of the rest of the Covenant ground forces. Several Grunts and Elites, however, had tried to counterattack using ghosts and wraiths with a few Jackals in support, but they were all wept aside by the scorpion tanks' main cannon and the quickness and accuracy of the taskforce soldiers sitting on the sides of the tank. One of the Grunts, that had been driving a ghost, had been hit in the face by a bullet from Tanya and the ghost drove into another ghost and both flipped over, crushing the Grunt that had been driving the second ghost and throwing the body of the dead Grunt onto the ground next to the pile of metallic wreckage. An Elite had even tried to board a banshee and use it against the tank but a tank shell from the main cannon flipped it over and the four taskforce soldiers fired on the creature, killing it.

After a few hectic minutes, the tank finally came to a halt and the four sitting on the sides jumped off the vehicle onto the ground. Marcus opened the hatch of the tank, which he had closed when the Covenant tried to counterattack with wraiths and ghosts, and climbed out of the tank and stepped off the side of the vehicle onto the ground. About fifty feet ahead of them was a cylindrical shaped, purple coloured haze that was descending down from a circular hole in the bottom of the ship. It was an anti-gravity lift.

"Well," Tyler said. "This is it," he said. "We've made it this far,"

"We just have to hope that the Covenant don't fly off with us," Tanya replied.

"I don't think they will," Marcus piped up.

"What makes you think that?" Tanya asked him as they all turned to look at him.

"I don't know," Marcus told them.

He was trying to sound truthful in his answer, but in reality he was lying, though he would not count it as a complete lie. He had a faint idea though why the Covenant would not leave even when their enemies were on the ship and in perfect place to surround and kill them.

That faint idea was what was in that cave. Could whatever it was in there somehow prevent the Covenant from leaving Reach?

"We better move quickly," Tyler said, snapping Marcus back into reality and he joined the rest of his squad as they ran into the gravity lift. They were lifted off their feet as if they were being picked up by invisible hands up towards the circular shaped hole about three hundred feet above them.

As Marcus began heading up towards the craft, he took a last look at the cave and wondered again what it was and why the Covenant were looking for it. He was beginning to get the feeling that the Covenant presence here was much deeper than just scouting out for Humans but whether it would reveal itself soon or not he did not know.

Hopefully, it would


	15. Battle on the battle cruiser

The large circular door on the bottom of the ship opened up and the five taskforce members hovered up through it into a large dimly lit rectangular shaped room with two doors along the wall ahead of them and another two on the wall behind them. One large light green door was on the left wall and another large light green door was on the right wall. Scattered around the room were several small shapes they could easily make out as ghosts.

Then, the door below them closed and, as if someone had flicked a switch, the five hovered down to the floor.

"Alright, we're in," Marcus said, looking around the dimly lit room, keeping his battle rifle close in case they were to be attacked. "Now we just have to find a way to their bridge and then there, we can look for any Intel on why they're here,"

"Question is: what door do we use?" Stinger asked him, looking around at all the doors of the room. "Any of them could lead anywhere,"

"We'll just have to guess," Alice piped up. "Guess and hope that the one we pick leads to the bridge,"

Whilst the three talked, Tanya and Tyler were glancing around them to make sure no Covenant were trying to sneak up on them. They had heard that if any marines had boarded a Covenant ship, they had very little chance of returning alive from it.

Then, a small beep echoed behind Tanya and she turned to see one of the doors on the forward wall, the one nearest the right wall, open up to reveal a corridor with a silver floor, pink walls and it was going up at a bit of an angle. Then, an object hovered into view from up the corridor, coming to a halt in the doorway, and Tanya lost her breath. It was an energy sword, but who was carrying it?

Then, as the object suddenly moved quickly towards them, it hit her.

"Watch out!" she shouted.

The others turned and saw the coming threat and fired at the air next to the sword. The sword suddenly rose up a little before going back down and a roar erupted from it. Crackles of electricity followed and a figure began to form. When it had formed, the group saw it was an Elite in silver armour. It had it's free hand over It's chest where purple blood was seeping through it's fingers. Marcus fired a final burst of ammo at the creature, hitting it the head and throwing the Elite backwards onto the floor, dead.

"Alright, where do we go now?" Tyler asked.

"Down there," Marcus replied, nodding towards the now open corridor the Elite had entered the room from.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Tanya asked him. "What if there's more of them down there,"

"We'll just have to take the risk," Marcus told her. "This could be the only door that's unlocked here,"

He ran towards the door; the rest of the squad followed. When they reached the corridor, which led to a large corridor that went both ways, they ran up the corridor towards the end. When they reached it, they looked both left and right. Left led to another door and right led to a turning that went left, where to was unknown. More Covenant? A hanger? They did not know.

"Which way do we go now?" Tyler asked.

Marcus muttered under his breath as he looked left and right, trying to decide which way to go. Either one of them might lead to the bridge but there was going to be more Covenant on one way to it than the other.

Finally, Marcus made his decision. "Go right," he said and he ran down towards the turning; the rest of the squad followed. When they reached the turning, they ran right down into another corridor that was about half as long as the corridor they had just left. At the end was a circular shaped turning with a kind of metallic pipe that ran through the middle of the turning. The walls were purple with a silver ceiling and there were several C-like shaped pillars connected to the walls with holographic controls hovering between the top and bottom ends. Another corridor was visible on the right wall. The squad ran down the corridor to the turning.

"ENEMY!"

Suddenly, a barrage of light green blasts flew down the corridor towards them. Marcus and Tanya dived behind the large metallic pipe. Stinger and Alice hid behind one of the pillars to the left of the entrance to the next corridor and Tyler behind a pillar to the right of the entrance to the next corridor. Marcus poked his head out from behind the pipe and looked down the corridor to see that it had four smaller corridors leading off it, three on the left side and one of the right, with another door at the end. Also in the corridor was a minor Elite with four minor Grunts and they firing down the corridor to try and pin down their enemies and kill them.

"How many?" Tanya asked.

"One Elite and four Grunts," Marcus replied as he blind fired a burst of ammo down the corridor at the Covenant.

A roar erupted from down there somewhere, obviously being the Elite, but he dared not look out and see if the creature was down or not. A few more bursts of ammo exploded in the turning, followed by a high pitched yell. That was one Grunt dead, but the rest of the Covenant were not going to go down as easy.

"Look out! They're throwing a grenade!" Stinger shouted all of a sudden.

Marcus looked out from behind the pipe and saw a small blue object heading towards them. Panic instantly filled him. If that thing landed in this turning, then they were dead.

Then, before Marcus could react, Tyler swung his battle rifle at the deadly device, hitting it and launching it back down the corridor towards the Covenant, who immediately began to panic and dived for cover as the grenade landed in the corridor.

BOOM! A loud explosion filled the air, followed by a blinding light blue light that made the squad hide their heads behind the wall. A second passed before it finally faded and they looked out from behind their cover to see the minor Elite lying dead just in the turning that led into the second smaller left corridor along the left wall. Another Grunt, that had tried running down the corridor to get away from the grenade, had also been killed.

"AAAHHH! LEADER DEAD! RUN AWAY!" one of the last two Grunts screamed as they ran out of the corridor on the right wall down the corridor towards the door at the end. The squad fired on them, killing both of them.

The squad ran down the corridor towards the end. As they passed each of the smaller corridors, they saw that they were only about ten feet long with a locked door at their ends. No wonder why the Covenant had not tried to flee to get reinforcements, but then again, even if the doors were unlocked, they had probably had orders to hold their positions and they could not go against them or that would be seen as going against the orders of their superiors and they could well and truly be given a death sentence, or worse, named a heretic to the Covenant and that was, to them, a great sense of shame and dishonour.

When the squad reached the doorway, the door beeped loudly and opened, revealing a huge room that was also dimly lit with a pathway that ran along the left wall to a door at the end. Several pillars ran down from the ceiling and past the pathway to the floor below. The floor, about twenty five feet below, had several large shapes scattered across and along the walls on the ground floor of the room were several doors, two on the left wall and two on the right. As the squad moved onto the pathway, the door closing behind them and cutting off the last supply of light into the room, they saw several figures moving down on the floor below. By the looks of it, they looked like Elites and Grunts. Then, a figure with a green shield appeared from behind one of the large shapes. A Jackal.

"Looks like we're gonna have another fight on our hands," Tyler muttered.

"We'll have to surprise 'em," Marcus replied, whispering so as not to attract attention from the Covenant. "Tanya, Stinger and Alice, you stay up here and provide covering fire. Tyler, you come with me. We're gonna try and get down there and surprise them,"

Tyler nodded and followed Marcus down the pathway to the door at the end whilst Alice, Stinger and Tanya crouched down and aimed their weapons down at the Covenant on the floor, ready to fire when the order was given.

The door beeped loudly and opened as Marcus and Tyler approached it, revealing a shot corridor that went down at a bit of an angle towards a kind of intersection at the bottom about twenty feet away. The walls were a dark red/orange colour with a silver ceiling. The forward exit of the intersection led to a door that was locked, as did the left exit as Marcus and Tyler could see the edge of the door. To the right was a corridor. The two ran down the corridor and ran right into the next corridor, which went down at a bit of an angle, where another turning led right into another corridor. The two ran down the corridor to the end.

Suddenly, as they turned into the next corridor, they ran into a group of three Jackals. Before they could raise their weapons, one of the Jackals launched itself at them, pushing Marcus to the floor, knocking his weapon out of his hand, and pinning him down by placing It's sharp clawed feet on his arms and It's knee on his chest as it grabbed his neck and began to chock him. Tyler tried to intervene, but was knocked to the floor, also having his weapon knocked out of his hand, by another Jackal that also pinned him down and began to choke him. The third Jackal screeched loudly and raised a fist into the air, obviously encouraging his comrades to kill them.

Marcus tried to throw the creature off him but the Jackal dug It's claws into his shoulder, making him cry out. The Jackal let out a low and long screech as it clutched down tighter on Marcus' neck. His vision was fading and his breaths were getting weaker. He had to do something or he and Tyler were dead!

It was then he realised that he could still move his legs. The Jackal had not pinned them down so he had an advantage.

Bringing up his leg, he brought it back as hard as he could into the Jackal. The impact must have hurt the creature badly because as soon as he hit it, the Jackal screeched loudly and, immediately letting go of Marcus' neck, collapsed onto him. Seeing his chance, Marcus threw the Jackal off him into his comrade standing between him and Tyler, knocking them both to the floor. The Jackal on Tyler screeched in surprise but before it could react, Marcus grabbed his weapon and fired a burst of ammo at the Jackal, hitting it in the side and throwing it off Tyler onto the floor, leaving a pool of purple blood on the wall. Marcus then fired another two bursts of ammo at the other two Jackals as they tried to return fire, hitting and killing them both.

Tyler coughed loudly as he massaged his neck with his hand.

"You alright?" Marcus asked him.

"Y-(cough)-yea-(cough)-yeah," he replied, coughing slightly as he sat up and picked up his weapon. He took a deep breath and stood up. "What do you think they were doing?" he asked Marcus, looking down at the bodies of the Jackals.

"No idea," he replied, also standing up. "We better keep moving," he said.

"I just hope the Covenant didn't hear this,"

Marcus nodded in agreement. "So do I,"

The two ran down the corridor, which was going down at a bit of an angle, to a flat section of the corridor at the end.

When the two reached the flat area of the corridor, they saw it led to a door at the end with another corridor coming off on the right wall about half-way down the corridor. If the corridor layout was correct, then it would lead to one of the doors on the bottom floor of the room. The two ran down the corridor to the next corridor on the right wall and ran down that one. Ahead of them at the end was an open doorway that showed a large dimly lit room with a large shape about five metres from the doorway.

Marcus stopped a few feet from the doorway and motioned for Tyler to wait and he crept down the corridor to the doorway and looked around. He could see Alice, Stinger and Tanya standing on the top walkway and, looking ahead of him, he could see several large figures that he could make out as Elites and Grunts. Another Jackal was standing guard behind another object underneath the pathway, looking around the room. They were in perfect striking position. Now it was time to surprise the Covenant.

"Okay," Marcus said, stepping back a few paces and looking over his shoulder at Tyler. "The others are in position and the Covenant don't know we're here,"

"Good," Tyler replied, walking up next to Marcus. "Let's kill 'em,"

The two stepped towards the doorway and aimed out at the nearby Covenant. They placed their fingers on their weapons' triggers, chose their targets and fired.

A barrage of gunfire exploded in the air as Marcus and Tyler fired on the Covenant. Almost immediately afterwards, Stinger, Tanya and Alice open fired on the Covenant as well. The screams of the Elites and Grunts and the screeches of the Jackals filled the air, almost completely overtaking the noise of the gunfire, as they were hit and fell, riddled with bullets.

After about a minute, the gunfire died down and Marcus stepped out of the corridor into the room and looked up at his squad members above him.

"Nice work, guys," he called. "Come down here,"

The three nodded and ran down the pathway, disappearing from sight as they ran through the doorway.

When they had disappeared, Marcus began to look around the room at the doors to try and find a way out of this room. Where were they to go? Any one of these doors could lead anywhere and word of them boarding the ship would have spread all over it by now.

"Where do we go now?" Marcus muttered under his breath. "Where do we g-"

"LOOK OUT!" Tyler yelled and fired a burst of ammo past Marcus, hitting and killing a Jackal that had run out of the door nearest the right end along the wall ahead of them (the left wall of the room as the two had come out of the door nearest the front wall on the right wall). Marcus looked at the door where the Jackal had emerged from and saw it was now open, revealing the corridor on the other side.

"Alright, we'll go that way," he said.

"You guys alright?" a voice said from the corridor behind them and the two looked to see Stinger, Tanya and Alice emerge from the corridor.

"We heard shooting," Tanya said.

"It's alright, just a Jackal," Tyler replied. "We found a way out of here. Through there," he pointed over to the open doorway on the opposite wall ahead of them.

"Let's go," Marcus piped up and he ran over towards the doorway; the rest of the squad followed.

When they ran through the doorway into the corridor, which was about twenty feet long a silver floor and ceiling but had green walls and went down at a 110 degree angle to a longer corridor at the end that led both left and right, Marcus suddenly stopped and held up his hand, signalling the others to stop as well.

"What is it?" Stinger asked him.

"I hear something," Marcus replied. "Wait here,"

He crept down the corridor towards the end. When he reached it, he poked his head out from behind the wall and looked left but saw nothing but another locked door with the other corridor, on the left side of the corridor about ten feet from the door, leading up to the other door along the wall in the room. Nothing that way. He looked right and saw the source of the noise he had heard.

At the end of this corridor was another circle-like shaped turning with a metallic pipe running down the middle of the turning with more of the C-like shaped pillars placed along the purple walls. Another corridor led off left. However, there were three Grunts standing in the corridor, squeaking and muttering to each other. All were armed with plasma pistols and two of them were minor and the third was a major. 

Marcus moved his head back behind the wall and looked back up the corridor at his squad. "Three Grunts, two minors and one major," he whispered to them.

"Should be easy," Alice replied, also whispering.

Marcus nodded and poked his head out from behind the wall again and aimed his battle rifle, aiming for the major. He rested his finger on his battle rifle's trigger and pressed down.

A burst of gunfire exploded in the air, followed by a high pitched yell as the major Grunt fell sideways to the floor, dead. The other two Grunts screamed and ran down the next corridor, waving their arms about in the air in terror. Marcus ran down the corridor to the turning, the rest of his squad following close behind. When they reached the next corridor, which was about fifteen feet long and led to a door, they fired down the corridor at the last two Grunts, hitting and killing them. Marcus then led the squad down the corridor towards the door, which beeped loudly and opened as they approached it, revealing a long corridor, about fifty feet long with a locked door at the end and three side corridors coming off it, two on the right and one on the left.

"HUMANS! KIL LTHEM!"

A barrage of light blue blasts flew down the corridor at the squad, hitting some of them and making their bodysuit's shield light up. The squad members either dived to the floor or into the small side corridor on the right wall a few feet down from them. Marcus, who was lying down on the floor with Tanya, looked up and saw a major Elite standing at the end of the corridor. He raised his battle rifle and fired a burst down the corridor at the creature. It hit the armour of the Elite and disabled It's shield, but before he could fire another burst of ammo to kill it, the creature dived into the other smaller corridor on the right side of the corridor.

"Damn it!" Marcus growled. "We won't be able to get him now,"

"We will if we pin him down long enough," Stinger replied. "Marcus, you and Tanya head down the corridor to the one on the left wall. We'll give you covering fire,"

"How can you be sure that this'll work?"

"Just trust us. Now get ready,"

Marcus sighed. This was a good idea of Stinger, he would admit, but he did not know if it would work. The Elite could easily try and fire down the corridor and see them coming and if it saw them coming, then it would fire on them and kill them. It was risky, but then again it was better than waiting here and trying to hit the Elite.

Marcus sat up and got into a crouching position. Tanya did the same. Marcus nodded at Stinger and he, Alice and Tyler fired down the corridor towards the Elite. Marcus and Tanya ran down the corridor as fast as they could, mentally praying that they would reach the corridor on the left wall before their comrades stopped firing. When they were a few feet from the left corridor, they dived into the corridor, just in time as well as the rest of the squad stopped firing.

Marcus breathed a sigh of relief as he sat up and rested his back against the wall of the corridor.

"That was close," he breathed.

Tanya nodded in agreement and looked past him down the corridor. Just as she did, the major Elite stuck his head out from the corridor to fire at the squad members and saw Tanya, but as he went to fire at her, a burst of ammo from further up the corridor hit him in the head and threw him to the floor, dead.

"Nice one," Tanya commented as Stinger, Alice and Tyler ran down the corridor to her and Marcus

"Thanks," Stinger replied.

Suddenly, a loud beep filled the air and the door at the end of the corridor opened and a Jackal ran in. It screeched loudly when it saw the squad but Marcus fired a burst of ammo at the creature, killing it. He lowered his weapon and looked through the open doorway into another corridor, that was about as half as long as the one they were in and led to another door at the end, though this one was locked. The only other way out through that corridor was another side corridor on the left wall near the locked door at the end.

"Let's go down there," Marcus said. "Try and find a way out of here,"

"And if there's no way out of here down there?" Tanya asked him.

"Then…" he began, but quickly trailed off. What were they to do if there was not another way out of here down there? Both of the doors down there could be locked or lead to nowhere. "Then…" he said again. "I don't know what we're gonna do," he paused for a moment as if trying to think of a final way out of this situation, but to no avail. "Let's go," he said finally and he ran down the corridor. The rest of the squad followed.

When they reached the side corridor, they ran down it towards the door, which beeped loudly and opened. Wow, that was some luck! Ahead of the squad was a dimly lit corridor that led to a dead end. On the right wall near the end was a kind of scanning device.

"Wonder what that is?" Tyler asked.

"A gravity lift," Alice told him. "I've studied the interior of a Covenant ship using stolen plans before. And if I remember correctly, that should take us to directly outside the bridge,"

"Well, we best use it then," Marcus piped up, walking down the corridor towards the end. "And we better be quick before the Covenant try and shut it down," he added.

He stopped in front of the scanning device and rested a hand on it. A loud whirring sound above him filled the corridor and he, along with the rest of his squad, looked up at the ceiling and saw, what looked like, a hole opening and an ever-stretching blackness on the other side of it.

"Anybody want to go first?" Marcus offered.

Nobody stepped forward. He sighed. "Alright, I'll go first," he said.

"Good luck," Stinger said, though not in an encouraging manner.

Marcus gave him an annoyed look and walked into the hole and turned to face his squad. He stood there still, waiting patiently for anything to happen. Nothing happened at first but then, just as he was about to move out from under the hole and rest a hand on the scanning device, he suddenly felt a lifting sensation and he began to hover slowly up into the tunnel as if he had been picked up by a pair of invisible hands. Then, as if he was being sucked into a hover, he shot up into the hole and disappeared from sight. Marcus closed his eyes as he shot up through a long tunnel. The sudden shooting of him up into the hole had made him feel sick. He mentally prayed that this would end soon.

Then, as if his prayers had been answered, he suddenly felt the shooting feeling stop and he felt himself falling again, though it stopped almost as quickly as it came. He opened his eyes and saw himself in a long corridor with silver a floor and ceiling, light green walls and two doors on the wall behind him. To his right, about twenty feet away, was another door that was locked. Left down the other end of the corridor was another corridor, meaning this one was joined onto a main one. Marcus looked down at the floor and saw that the hole had closed and become part of the floor again.

"What news has reached us?"

Marcus gasped and looked left down the corridor to see two large figures run from left to right. Elites. Marcus crept down the corridor to hear what they were saying, which he could make out clearly from even where his was, their deep voices ringing in his ears as they ran down the corridor.

"I have heard that the Human intruders have boarded the vessel," one of the Elites said as Marcus reached the end of the corridor, stopping just short of the turning into the main corridor. "Our shipmaster wants us to flee,"

"What of our sacred mission?" the other asked.

"The zealots have ordered him not to flee so we can still carry it out! I am thankful for doing so! I have heard this could take us to our greatest goal in our quest for the Great Journey!"

As they rounded the turning at the end of the corridor, Marcus began to think about what he had just heard them say. So they were here on some kind of sacred mission, but what did they mean by a Great Journey? And if they're entire mission to Reach was a sacred mission, including the last few days, then why were they looking at the outposts far from the bases? Something was definitely going on here and he had to find out what.

"Whoa!" a voice exclaimed from behind him and Marcus turned to see Tyler shoot up out of the hole and land gently on the floor next to the hole, which closed. "That was quick!" he said.

"Are the others on their way?" Marcus asked Tyler.

"Yeah," he replied. He turned and looked up and down the corridor. "I hope Alice is right. If she is, then the bridge should be around here somewhere,"

Suddenly, the hole opened up again and Tanya shot up and landed next to Tyler.

"Wow," she said, smiling a little as he looked down at the hole, which began to close up and become part of the floor again. "That was actually pretty fun,"

Marcus rolled his eyes and Tyler just smirked.

"What?" Tanya asked them, looking at the two when she saw the looks on their faces.

"Oh, nothing," Tyler replied, pretending to act as if nothing ever happened.

Suddenly, the hole opened again and a voice shouted: "Look out!" and Alice shot up through the hole. Tanya moved out of the way to allow Alice to land safely.

"Thanks," she said. "We must be near the bridge," she added, looking up and down the corridor.

"Must be," Tyler replied. "What do you think, Marcus?" no reply. "Marcus?"

The three looked at their squad leader and saw him looking ahead at the wall as if in a trance, a concerned expression on his face. He looked…worried about something?

"Are you alright, Marcus?" Tyler asked.

Marcus turned his head looked at them and shook his head slightly, blinking several times as if trying to shake himself out of his trance.

"Y-yeah I'm fine," he said.

"Are you sure? You looked worried,"

"Yeah, don't worry. I'm fine," 

"Watch it!"

The hole had opened up again and Stinger hovered out of it and gently floated down to the floor.

"Good, we're all here," Marcus said. "Now we can find the bri-"

A loud screech made them jump and the squad looked up the corridor towards the main one and saw a Jackal standing there. Quick as a flash, they fired a barrage at the creature, hitting it and throwing it to the floor.

"What was that?" a deep voice shouted from somewhere. "Go and find out what it was!"

"That sounded close," Marcus said.

He stepped towards one of the doors on the left wall of the corridor. It beeped loudly and opened. Just as it did, a minor Elite, that had been running over towards the door, suddenly stopped and roared at Marcus, raising It's weapon. Marcus was quicker and he fired two bursts of ammo at the Elite, hitting it in the chest. The bullets easily broke the armour's shield and embedded themselves in the creature's chest. The Elite roared weakly as it fell backwards onto the floor, dead. Marcus lowered his weapon and looked around the room as the other re-joined him.

"This the bridge?" he asked Alice.

"Yep," she replied. "This is it alright,"

The bridge was a large square shaped room with dark blue walls, floor and ceiling with four doors on It's walls, two on the same wall their door was on, one on the right wall and another in the same place as the door on the right wall but on the opposite side of the room. Hovering about fifteen feet in the air in the middle of the room was a large platform with a kind of ramp pathway going up to it from the front of it down to the floor. Around the sides of the platform were more of the C-like shaped purple coloured pillars, with holographic symbols going around the edge of the platform like a ring, stopping at the ends of each of the pillars, both of which were placed at the top of the ramp pathway. Below the platform were two ten foot deep and twenty foot long trenches driven deep into the floor.

"Okay," Marcus said. "Now we need to find out any info on what exactly they're doing here,"

"Let's try those holographic symbols," Alice told him, pointing up at the platform. "They should hold something,"

Marcus nodded and walked towards the platform, the rest of the squad following close behind. As the squad stepped reached the bottom of the ramp pathway, Marcus stopped suddenly, which made the others stop as well.

"What is it?" Stinger asked him.

"Something's not right," he said. "I…just have this feeling that-"

"DIE HUMAN MEDDLERS!"

Suddenly, a figure seemed to shoot up from the platform floor and fired a few light blue blasts at them. It was an Elite. The squad dived for cover, narrowly missing the barrage of deadly blasts and were quick to react. Tanya and Alice fired up at the Elite, hitting it in the chest and side. The Elite roared and fell backwards to the platform floor.

"Nice one, girls," Tyler commented as he, Marcus and Stinger got up and walked up the ramp pathway with Alice and Tanya joining them.

When the squad reached the platform at the top of the ramp pathway, they saw a small pool of purple blood on the floor a few feet from them with a trail leading away from it to the Elite Tanya and Alice had injured. It was dressed in silver armour, making Marcus think that this was the shipmaster he had heard the other two Elites in the corridor talk about. The Elite had the upper part of It's body being held up by It's arm. The other it was using to touch several of the holographic symbols on the ring going around the edge of the platform.

"Hey!" Tyler growled, stepping forward.

The Elite turned to face them and tried to raise It's arm with the plasma rifle, but Tyler fired a shot from his battle rifle, hitting the Elite in the arm. The creature roared in pain and dropped the weapon.

"You may as well give up," Marcus said to the Elite. "Tell us what you're doing here! Why were you digging in the side of that mountain outside the ship?"

The Elite only laughed. "You are too late to know that now," he said, coughing a little as blood began to drip from the wounds on It's chest and side, turning his armour purple. "We shall…complete our sacred mission and…we…will wipe your filth…from the universe! And we will start…with this planet!"

Tyler laughed a little at the Elites' words. "Well, you've got another thing coming, you split lip bastard," he said to the Elite. "You and your Covenant buddies are too late to invade Reach,"

The Elite laughed at Tyler's words and did not stop when it was breathing heavily and coughing slightly.

"N-no!" he laughed. "We…we are j-just…on time!"

The Elite then slammed his hand onto the holographic symbols. At once, a red light appeared at the point where his hand touched the symbol and it turned into a timer. The timer read: **01:50 **and was counting down. **01:49**.** 01:48**.

The squad went wide-eyed.

"Shit!" Alice exclaimed upon seeing the timer. "He's activated a timer! The ship's gonna blow!"

"We need to go, now!" Marcus said as he, Stinger and Tanya turned to run out of the room.

Alice joined them, but Tyler decided to finish the elite off. He fired a burst of ammo at the creature, hitting it in the chest, killing it. He then joined the squad as they ran towards the door to the left of the platform.

The door opened as the squad approached it and they ran into the corridor. Marcus ran right down the corridor towards the turning at the end; the squad followed. When they reached the turning, they ran left into a shorter corridor that led to another turning that went right.

"Marcus, do you have any idea where you're going?" Stinger shouted to him, as they turned right into the next corridor.

"I don't know a lot about the interior of a Covenant battle cruiser," he replied. "But if there's one thing I do know, It's that a corridor from the bridge always leads to a hanger,"

The group ran towards the door at the end. It beeped loudly and opened as they approached it and the squad ran through onto a large pathway that was in a large rectangular-like shaped hanger with two pathways going up the back wall, one about a third of the way up, and the second about two thirds of the way up the wall. Coming off the first pathway, which was about twenty five feet above the floor, was a large rectangular block with a pathway on the top of it. The block almost split the floor of the room in two, stopping about fifteen feet from the wall that separated the two large square shaped hanger entrances on the front wall. Four pillars, two on either side of the block ran down from the ceiling, connecting to the sides of the pathway, to the floor and between each pillar was another C-like shaped purple coloured pillar with a few holographic symbols hovering between the two ends.

"I hope there's one here," Marcus said, running across the pathway towards the edge.

"You hope there's one what here?" Tanya asked him as the rest of the squad followed.

"A Covenant drop ship," Marcus replied.

He stopped at the edge of the pathway and looked down…and breathed a sigh of relief.

There, hovering alongside the rectangular block, was a large craft with a large main section with two large L shaped sections sticking out of the sides with the ends pointing towards the hanger entrance. A light blue/green haze was hovering between the two ends. Sticking out of the bottom of the main section was a large sphere with three silver coloured pointed ends sticking out of the side of it. It was the drop ships' turrets. At the moment, it was locked in hovering position.

Marcus ran down the pathway to the pillar nearest him and rested a hand on one of the symbols. The drop ship jolted and hovered up towards the pathway, turning sideways. The side of the L shaped section nearest the pathway opened up.

"Get on board, quickly!" Marcus ordered.

The squad obeyed and ran on the craft. When they were all on, Marcus climbed on after them. The door closed behind him. Just in time as well as the door at the other end of the pathway opened up and a squad of a major Elite and four minor Grunts ran out and fired on the drop ship. A few more Covenant, a mixture of more Elites and Grunts with a few Jackals, appeared out of several other doors along the doors along the hanger floor or ran onto the rectangular block and also fired up at the craft.

Marcus and Alice ran down to the cog pit of the drop ship.

"I'll fly," Alice said.

"Are you sure you know how to fly this?" Marcus asked her as Stinger, Alice and Tyler joined them in the cog pit. Tanya sat down on one of the seats along the walls in front of a control panel that was connected to the ships' turret.

"Positive," Alice told Marcus.

She grabbed the controls and pulled back. The drop ship rose into the air. She then turned the controls left, making the drop ship do the same so the front was facing the hanger entrance. Then, she pushed the control forward and the drop ship flew forward out of the hanger and into the bright sky of the outside world, flying as fast as it could away from the Covenant ship.

On board the ship, the self-destruct timer began to count down to It's final seconds.

**00:03…**

**00:02…**

**00:001…**

As Marcus, Stinger and Tyler sat down on the seats, the squad heard an earth rumbling noise fill the air all of a sudden as if it were a volcano erupting. Then the ship shook slightly for a few seconds before it stopped.

"Well, that's the end for the battle cruiser," Stinger said.

The others laughed a little, all apart from Marcus. He was thinking again, about…about that cave and what the Elites had said. What were the Covenant looking for in that cave and what did those two Elites mean by completing a sacred mission in this 'Great Journey'? It just did not make any sense, at least not at the moment. The Covenant were definitely up to something here. They were _looking_ for something, but if they were apparently getting close to whatever it was here, as Marcus had heard the Elites talk about it, then why did they attack those two outposts. None of that made any sense of what they were doing here as well.

He had to find out what they were doing here, and soon because when the Elite said _"No, we are just on time," _he could not help but think there were more Covenant coming for them.


	16. Revealing the truth

**Later that day**

**Time: 21:43pm**

The evening had descended across the world of Reach, turning the sky in a beautiful array of colours consisting of gold, purple, orange and red. Far off in the distance, the black sky of the approaching night was slowly seizing control of the sky. Soon the sky would be dark, but replaced with hundreds of stars to make sure that the light of the universe stayed on this planet. It was a lot different on Reach. Even though it was April, it was like Summer weather here already and this would start in about late March time and would go on until September, then the nights would suddenly grow longer and the days shorter. Strange, but then again that was the nature of the planet for you.

In the barracks of the _Axiom _main base, the taskforce were settling down for the night. Tomorrow, they were to be prepped again on their first mission against the Covenant fleet so they were going to need to get some rest. Eve, however, was, as she had been doing for the past few days, sitting on her bed going over the plans for the hanger. Her eyes were a little red from where she had not gotten enough sleep over the past few days and she tried her best to stifle a yawn. Her body was telling her to put down the plans and get some rest, but she was ignoring it and continued to look on at them as if she were someone who was not going to give up on something until it was done, which she was in a way, well for the moment though. Everyone else was either asleep or trying to fall asleep.

Well, almost everyone because two of the beds in the barracks were empty.

Outside in Jura Park, Anya had asked to speak to Marcus again and had asked permission from a sergeant, who did not know they had been out before and that John had given orders not to let any taskforce soldiers, which was especially fixed on Marcus and Anya after Marcus' failed attempt to tell Anya what they had really been doing than these supposed 'missions' they were going on, and he had let them go out.

Anya, however, rather than be quiet and entranced by the beauty of the night sky, was sounding a little more determined today for some reason, which Marcus quickly noticed as she was walking more at a pace of wanting to talk to him as soon as she could, almost as if it was urgent. What was wrong with her? Why, if that it was it was, did she want to talk to him this urgently? It was strange.

"Um…Anya, are you okay?" he asked her with a little concern in his voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied, not turning to look at him.

They walked right down the path where the bench they had sat on before was placed. The shape of the bench was just ahead of them and they sat down on it. When they had done, Anya placed a hand on Marcus' which was resting on his lap.

"Okay, Marcus," she said. "I you want to know why I brought you out here, It's because I wanted to ask you something,"

Marcus nodded, but only a little. He was a bit worried over what she wanted to ask him. Could it be about…them? Or was it something else?

"Okay," he replied. "W-what is it?"

Anya sighed. "It's about…what you and the others have been doing over the past few days,"

At these words, Marcus' eyes did go wide, not with shock over what she was asking him, but with the fact that he could not just ignore her and he might _have _to tell her what he and the others had really been doing.

"Um…I don't think that's a good idea," he replied.

"Why not?" Anya asked him, her voice rising a little with annoyance. "Marcus, you and those other taskforce soldiers have been going out on, apparently on these 'special missions', and you've been told not to tell anyone. Plus, you've been leaving early in the morning, like you and that Simon guy did the other day, and today, you came back in the afternoon. Why are you keeping this secret and what exactly are you guys doing? And don't try and weed your way around it! I want to know what it is! Please, don't argue, just tell me,"

Marcus went to say something, probably to try and reason with her, but the stern look on Anya's face told him he was not going to try and talk her out of this. Finally, after a few moments, he sighed in defeat.

"Alright, Anya," he said. He took a deep breath and quickly glanced up and looked around to make sure they were not being watched. He even looked behind them, but saw no one and he turned to face her. "These…these missions…they're not really…anything to do with training." He paused; as if to expect a reaction from her, but she did not say anything and looked at him as if pressing him on to continue. "They're…They're actually…um…missions against…" he took another deep breath as if he was trying to stop himself, but for some reason he wanted to tell her the truth and this was his chance. "They're missions against Covenant scouts!" he blurted out, looking down at the ground.

When he looked up at Anya again after a few moments, he saw her eyes wide with…shock and unbelief. Her mouth hung open a little and it looked as though the colour from her face was draining. When he saw this, Marcus began to panic a little.

"B-but, like you said, we had been ordered not to tell anyone, even about the ship and-"

_Oh no! _he mentally cursed himself. He should not have said that.

"Wait, what do you mean by ship?" Anya asked him, her voice more demanding now.

_Crap! _Marcus cursed himself again. "Um…" he replied, laughing a little as he rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. "Today, there was a CCS battle cruiser in the Zura mountains and…"

"And you didn't tell anyone!" Anya half-shouted, getting to her feet.

"Anya, calm down!" Marcus urged her as he got up.

"No! I-I can't believe you, Marcus!" her voice began to break a little. "I thought I really knew you! I thought if there was a battle cruiser, you would have told us all about what was going on! Now for all we know, the Covenant could be coming this way!"

"I told that to John, but he said there's nothing heading towards Reach!"

"Yeah, but how does he know that?"

Marcus sighed. "Anya," he tried to place a hand on her face, but she knocked it away and wiped away a tear from her eye.

"I can't believe you, Marcus!" she said in a broken voice as a few more tears fell down her face. "I thought I could really trust you!"

"Anya, please calm down!" Marcus urged her, but she just shook her head, staring at him in disbelief.

"I hate you!" she said. "I HATE YOU!" she screamed at him. "I-I WISH YOU HAD DIED IN RODUM!" and she ran off back towards the base, tears streaming down her face.

"Anya, wait!" Marcus called after her but she had disappeared into the bushes of the park before he had even moved a foot from where she was standing. He stood where he was for a second before he growled and launched a kick at the side of the bench, almost knocking it over. He winced slightly in pain and sat down and buried his face in his hands.

"I'm such an idiot!" he mumbled to himself.

_Yes, you are!_ His mind seemed to shout at him.

**Ten minutes later**

Marcus walked down the corridor that led to the barracks. He was still seething with anger, not directed at Anya but himself. He had been such a fool. Why had he told her what he had really been doing? Why? It was such a stupid thing to do and he had upset her! And it was too late to try and say sorry now. Oh, he was such an idiot, he felt like hitting his head against the wall.

_I'm such an idiot! _He mentally repeated to himself for the fifth time as he reached the barracks door, which opened as he approached it.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed.

Standing there was a woman at about his height who was dressed in a white bodysuit. She had shoulder length silver hair, blue eyes, though the skin around them was slightly red, soft cheeks and a small nose. Her body was an athletic build. It was Eve.

"Eve," Marcus said. "What are you doing up?" he asked.

"I've come to talk to you, Marcus," she replied. She stepped out into the corridor, the door closing behind them so as not to wake the others in the barracks, and turned to face him. "What's wrong with Anya?" she asked him gently, though it was clear that she wanted a straight answer.

"Oh," Marcus replied. He paused for a moment before he sighed. "Well, I told her where…me and those others taskforce soldiers had been going and she…well, got quite upset,"

Eve nodded. "I noticed it when she walked in," she said. "I asked her if she was alright and she said she was but she looked like she' been crying,"

"Look, Eve," Marcus said. "I didn't mean to hurt her. She wanted to know and I told her and well, she just got upset,"

Eve nodded again. "What exactly was it you told her?" she asked him.

"It's best if I don't tell you in case you get angry," Marcus replied.

Eve nodded. Yes, maybe it was best if he did not say what it was he was to keep secret again.

"Look," she said, placing a hand on Marcus' shoulder. "I'll talk to her and try and reason with her,"

Marcus smiled a little. "Thanks, Eve,"

"You're welcome. Now you go and get some sleep,"

"What about you?"

"I still have the blueprints of the hangers and the bridge to look over,"

"Well, just don't overwork yourself or you'll get stressed out again like you did last time,"

"Good night, Marcus," she said to him, a little annoyed that he was trying to help her and Marcus sighed and walked into the barracks. Eve followed him. He needed some sleep and time to think about what would happen now between him and Anya.


	17. Back to the cave

**The next day**

**Date: April 10****th**

**Location: Zula mountains. **

The pelican descended through the dark cloudless sky back towards the Zula mountain range. On board was Marcus. He had been given orders by John an hour ago to come back to the mountain range to scout out the area he and his team had gone to yesterday.

Marcus, at the moment, was lying down on the resting area seats, fast asleep. It was about 05:00am and he was still tired, partly from being woken up early but also because of the night before from when he had told Anya, a member of the taskforce he was secretly in love with, that the Covenant had been coming to Reach and scouting out It's surface. They had had argued and it had made him very tired.

In the cog pit of the pelican, the pilot opened the door with his free hand and looked through into the resting area.

"Wakey, wakey, Marcus!" he called, receiving a groan from the taskforce soldier. "We're almost there,"

Marcus groaned again in reply and sat up, rubbing his eyes. He looked out through the resting area entrance to see the colours of gold, red and orange breaking on the horizon far away. Dawn was coming and soon it would be daytime.

It was really surprising for him to be coming back here just a day after their mission. Although John had not briefed him on why he was coming back here, he had a feeling it was to do with that cave he had seen yesterday when he and his team were on the scorpion tank and were attacking the Covenant outside the CCS battle cruiser. He had wanted to know what was going to be inside that cave and why the Covenant were digging in that cave. Well, it looked like he was going to get both answers to both of those questions now.

The tops of the mountains began to pass by the resting area entrance as the pelican descended towards the large clearing the Covenant force had been stationed on. Marcus reached under his seat and took out his battle rifle. He loaded a clip of ammunition into it and then took out a small object from his chest pocket. It was a small square shaped object that was silver coloured and no bigger than his thumbnail. It was a data cord.

John had given this data cord to him back at the base and when Marcus asked why he had given it to him, John told him that it would help get any useful information and then, just before he had walked off walked off, he had told Marcus to place it on his shoulder. Why had he given this to him? What could this data cord have that could help get any useful information? And why had he told him to place it on his shoulder? It was strange, very strange.

"Alright, we're here, Marcus," the pilot called out again from the cog pit.

Marcus looked out through the resting area entrance and saw an enormous clearing in front of him. Scattered around it were the remains of Covenant ghosts, banshees, wraiths and the bodies of Grunts, Jackals, Elites and Hunters of all ranks. This was the evidence of the great battle that had taken place here just twenty or so hours ago and, as Marcus stood up and stepped off the pelican onto the snow covered ground, the cold instantly hitting him and making him shiver and he felt his hairs on his arms stand up, he saw several huge metallic remains at the other end of the clearing. That was what was left of the CCS battle cruiser they had boarded and the Elite captain had self-destructed in order to kill them. Obviously it had failed and the result was that the captain and all remaining crew members were blown to smithereens in the explosion.

"_Base wants you to contact 'em when your inside the cave," _the pilot's voice erupted through his ear radio. _"Then contact me and I'll come and pick you up,"_

Marcus placed a finger on the radio in his ear. "Roger that," and, as he lowered his hand, he watched as the pelican hovered into the air and flew off into the sky, disappearing behind the mountain peaks. Marcus breathed a sigh and looked around at the wasteland strewn with metallic wreckage and the many bodies of Covenant. So he was on his own, but what about that data cord. As he held it between his fingers and looked at it, turning it from side to side, John's words: _Place it on your shoulder _echoed in his ears.

"Might as well try and see what it does," he muttered and he placed the data cord on his shoulder.

For a moment the data cord just sat there, Marcus watching intently to see if anything happened. Then, when Marcus was about to take it off his shoulder, it suddenly morphed with his suit and sank into it like quicksand. Almost instantly as it had disappeared, a voice in his head said: "Hello!"

"Whoa!" Marcus exclaimed, pausing for a second as if expecting something to happen. "Where are you?"

"I'm in your head," the voice said. Then, a purple colour fell onto Marcus' right eye and he looked to see a seven inch high purple coloured holographic person standing there. He was dressed in a high ranking officer's uniform and some sort of dark blue/purple coloured lines rising up from his feet up to his body. "Or, now on your shoulder," the person said.

Marcus stared at him with wide-eyes, obviously meaning he had never seen anything like this before.

"What are you?" he asked.

"I'm an Intelligent A.I," the person answered. He held out his hand. "My name is Auto," he said.

Marcus stared at Auto's hand for a moment before he decided to be friendly and shook Auto's tiny hand, which he could actually feel in his.

"Wait," Marcus said as he let go of Auto's hand and began walking towards the cave. "Isn't an Intelligent A.I formed from someone's mind?" he asked.

Auto nodded. "That's right. My mind was created by Doctor Alfred Martinez,"

"He's dead now, isn't he,"

"Yes, sadly. Right in the middle of his work on finding something that was apparently very old, older than our civilization even,"

Marcus went to reply but looked at Auto and then at the cave. He racked his brain and remembered that the doctor had been working on something here on Reach and if Auto was right about it looking for something that was very old…could it be what was in there?

"Are you alright?" Auto asked him.

Marcus shook his head a few times and nodded. "Yeah…yeah, I'm fine," he replied and he ran towards the cave.

When he reached it, he saw a silver colour covering the walls, ground and ceiling of the cave that seemed to descend down at a bit of an angle into the mountain. He stared at it, wide-eyed.

"What the Hell is this?" he asked as he stepped into it.

"No idea," Auto replied as his form disappeared back into Marcus' bodysuit.

Marcus went to step in further but stopped and looked at the pitch blackness that seemed to engulf the entire cave. It was very dark. There was no might at all and he was reluctant to go in further. He had no lighting equipment with him and if he got lost or trapped then he could well and truly die in here.

"I don't know," he said. "I have a bad feeling about this place,"

"So do I, but we have to go in," came Auto's voice. "I have a motion tracker so I'll try and guide you in,"

"Just please try not to get us lost,"

"Don't worry, I won't,"

Marcus nodded, though he still felt a bit reluctant, and walked into the cave, the lightness of the breaking dawn outside slowly fading the further in he went. Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, light suddenly erupted everywhere and filled the entire cave. Marcus was blinded for a second before he slowly moved his arm from in front of his eyes and looked ahead of him to see the cave was a tunnel. The light seemed to erupt from the walls, floor and ceiling. Marcus looked down the tunnel and saw a kind of opening at the end.

"Wonder what's down there," he muttered under his breath and he ran down the tunnel towards the end.

As he got closer to the end, he saw that the opening led into a kind of large chamber that seemed to have been built right into the base of the mountain. He stopped at the end of the tunnel and gazed around the chamber. The chamber was about six hundred feet long and about the same in width and was about two hundred feet high. A single thin pathway led from the opening to a kind of circular shaped platform in the middle of the chamber, which seemed to be hovering above a huge dark abyss that covered the entire bottom of the chamber. Looking down into ti, Marcus felt like going down there meant entering Hell itself.

"Jesus," he gasped as he looked around the chamber. "I've never seen anything like this,"

"Neither have I," Auto replied. "Or anyone else for that matter I don't think,"

"I better contact base," Marcus muttered and he placed a finger on the radio in his ear. "Base, this is Marcus. Me and Auto are in the mountain and we're in some kind of huge chamber,"

Static was Marcus's reply for about a minute before a voice began to talk from the radio.

_"Roger that, Marcus," _the voice said. It was John. _"Is there anything that looks like it might hold anything useful?" _he asked.

"Well there's a circular platform in the middle of the chamber, which I can reach over a pathway, but it doesn't look like there's anything on it,"

_"Well, have a look. If there's nothing, then leave and the pelican'll come and pick you up. If there is anything, put Auto in it and he'll absorb it into the data cord, then leave,"_

"Roger that, sir," and the radio went quiet.

Marcus lowered his finger from his ear radio and ran down the pathway towards the platform. As he approached it, he saw a kind of small control panel built around the edge of the platform. Maybe that might hold something useful.

Marcus slowed to a walk when he reached the platform and walked over to the control panel. It was light blue coloured and had many holographic buttons, slots and switches moving about on the top of it. Marcus was intrigued by it all and he squeezed his shoulder and Auto's data cord rose up out his suit and sat there on his shoulder. He took it between his fingers and placed the data cord in one of the holographic slots. The data cord was suddenly sucked into the control panel as it had been sucked into a hover. A second passed before Auto's A.I rose up out of the top of the control panel; though this time he was about Marcus' height rather than his normal seven inch high form.

"It's amazing," he said in a fascinated tone. "I can't believe it. All this knowledge,"

"Fun?" Marcus asked.

Auto nodded. "Very,"

"Is any of it useful?"

"Oh…right. One moment,"

Auto's form descended back into the control panel. Marcus stood there and gazed around the chamber again, taking in all of it. The ceiling was rock, as were the walls, but he kept thinking that he could see hundreds of small holes dotted around the walls and ceiling. It was strange, but amazing as well. He had never seen anything like this being built from Humans before, and he knew the Covenant could never build anything like this as well. Who did build this, and why? It was a question he really wanted to find the answer to.

"_Whoa! Marcus, look at this!"_ Auto's voice erupted from the control panel, making him jump.

Marcus looked at the control panel to see a holographic screen rise up from the top of the control panel. On it was a green coloured background that looked like the interior of a machine with seven light green rings going across the middle of the holographic screen from one side to the other. Above each one were Roman numerals with I above the first ring, II above the second, III above the third and so on.

"What are they?" Marcus asked.

_"Some kind of…creations," _Auto replied. _"There seven of them and…wait a minute,"_

"What is it?"

_"I've found something else…or two things to be exact. Look,"_

The rings on the holographic screen disappeared, except for the fourth ring, which grew until it covered the middle of the screen and two sets of numbers appeared below it. One of them said _A113 _and the other _343_.

"What do they mean?" Marcus asked.

_"Your guess is as good mine,"_ Auto replied. _"Okay, I've downloaded it all. Let's go,"_

Marcus nodded and, when the holographic screen had promptly disappeared from above the control panel, he took Auto's data cord and placed it on his shoulder. The data cord morphed within his suit and sank into it like quicksand.

Suddenly, a low rumbling filled the air. Marcus paused and raised his weapon slight, looking around as if expecting an attack by someone, or something, at any moment. Panic began to fill him and he gulped in fear. What the Hell as that rumbling? Why was it happening?

All of a sudden, the hundreds of tiny holes along the walls and ceiling suddenly began raining objects. Marcus could not see them clearly as it was quite dark. Then…

SMASH! A large rock ploughed down through the platform, tearing it from the pathway and making it fall into the pitch black abyss below.

"Oh crap!" Marcus shouted.

He turned and ran down the pathway towards the tunnel. Behind him, he could hear loud crashes and thuds as the rocks struck the pathway and the sides of the chamber. He tried to run faster as the panic within him overwhelmed him like a flood. He had to get out of here! He had to. Just another one hundred feet!

CRASH! Another rock landed a few metres behind him and the pathway shook. Marcus ran as fast as he could and, when he was about six feet from the end of the pathway, he dived into the tunnel. Just in time as another large rock smashed against the remainder of the pathway and tore it away from the tunnel and took it into the abyss below.

Marcus breathed a sigh of relief as he stood up. "Jeez!" he gasped. "That was close!"

"Yeah it was," Auto replied. "I think I must have activated something that caused that to happen,"

"Ancient booby traps. Never gets old when you go into a large place," Marcus told him. "Let's get out of here before the whole place decides to come down,"

"Good idea,"

Marcus ran up the tunnel to the entrance at the end. When he emerged from the tunnel back into the light outside, he ran a few hundred feet from the tunnel, just in case something else happened and he got caught within it.

Stopping behind the remains of a ghost, he sat down on the remains and placed a finger on the radio in his ear.

"Bravo 521, this is Marcus," he said, breathing heavily a little. "I'm ready to be picked up,"

_"Roger that," _came the pilot's voice from his ear radio. _"Are you alright, man? You sound scared and out of breath,"_

"Let's just say: me and Auto have had a very near death experience," he replied. "I'll see you in a minute,"

He took his finger off the radio in his ear and laid down on the remains of the ghost, breathing heavily to try and get his breath back. That was a close call. He and Auto could have been killed if he had not been fast enough, but he was out now. They were both safe and now they had to get back to base.

A few minutes later, a large shape descended down and came to a halt near Marcus. It was the pelican. He stood up and climbed in, sitting down on the resting area seats and resting his back against the wall.

"Everything go alright, man?" the pilot asked from the cog pit.

"Yeah…great," Marcus replied, giving a thumbs up at the same time.

A few seconds passed before the pelican jolted slightly and hovered back up into the air. When it had risen about twenty feet, it flew off into the mountain tops. Marcus looked out through the resting area and saw that the sky was now much lighter as dawn came ever closer to breaking to start a new day.

He and Auto would have a hell of a story to tell John when they got back to base.


	18. The start of the attack

**Five hours later**

**Location: Reach task force barracks**

When Marcus had arrived back at the base after going to the cave in the Zula mountains again, he had given Auto's data cord to sergeant John and was told he might be debriefed later on in the day by him and captain McCrea. He was also told to keep quiet about this mission, something which Marcus was annoyed at but decided to listen this time for he was worried that he might cause another incident with the other members of his group like he had done with Anya last night.

He had returned to the barracks as quietly as he could and tried to capture the last few hours of sleep before they were woken up. Today, he could sleep a little longer because the taskforce was being debriefed on an attack on the Covenant fleet before they were board the main assault carrier and that would not begin until midday.

By about 9am, they were all awake, had their breakfast and were now waiting in the barracks. Eve was, as usual, going over the plans for the attack on the main assault carrier but had decided to take a break and was having a rest. Anya was with Allison, Bethany and Emily at Anya's bed. Marcus had thought about asking to talk with her but he was too nervous to see if she was still angry with him about what happened last night. Hopefully she wasn't.

"I still think we should tell the others about what we've been doing," Tanya said.

Marcus was with his group around Tanya's bed. They were talking about the fact that they still had to keep quiet about their 'secret missions'. It was stupid, but they just had to go along with it because they knew what would happen to them if they told anyone else about the Covenant scouting missions on Reach.

"You know we can't," Tyler told her.

"I know, but still…" Tanya replied. "They have to find out sooner or later,"

"Tanya's right," Alice piped up. "It's only a few days until the mission and the others deserve to know what's been going on,"

Whilst the others were talking, Marcus was looking over towards Anya's bed where he friends were all gathered. He sighed in knowing that she could still be angry with him and looked around the barracks. He saw one soldier in a red bodysuit sitting on the side of his top bunk bed with his feet dangling down the side, reading a letter in his hand. That soldier was called Matthew. Apparently, he had been taken out of the barracks as well and told about something that had made him really upset. What it was, Marcus did not know.

He looked over at Anya and saw her quickly look away from him. Even though she looked away from him very quickly he saw the annoyed look on her face. So she was still angry with him.

Marcus sighed and stood up. "I'll be back in a minute guys," he said to the group and he turned to walk towards Anya only to see her, Emily and Bethany walking towards Eve's bed. Marcus' eyes widened. Oh no! he was losing his chance to talk to her! He quickened his pace towards her. He was going to talk to her and he had to do it now!

"No Marcus, stop!" a voice said as someone stepped in front of him. It was a woman with brown hair and brown eyes and wearing a green bodysuit. It was Allison.

"Allison, please! I just want to talk to Anya," Marcus told her.

"No, Marcus," she said, not moving from where she was standing. "She told us everything about last night and she doesn't want to speak to you,"

Marcus sighed and looked down at the floor for a second before looking back up at Allison.

"So you know now?" he inquired in a low tone.

"Well no," Allison replied.

"But I thought you said-"

"She told us that you and her had gotten into an argument, but not over what. I was hoping you could fill me in on that,"

"I can't, Allison. Now I need to talk to Anya,"

He went to walk past her, but Allison stopped him. "No, Marcus!" she told him sternly. "She doesn't want to talk to you!"

"Allison, please," Marcus pleaded.

"No, Marcus, stop!" Allison said. "You've already upset her. Now just…please just go and sit down!"

Marcus looked down the room towards Eve's bed, where Anya, Bethany and Emily were gathered around and sighed in defeat and walked back over to the bunk bed where his group of friends were sitting.

"Are you alright, Marcus?" Tyler asked him as he re-joined the group, making the others look at him as well.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied lowly.

"You don't seem fine," Tanya said.

"Tanya, I'm fine!" Marcus snapped. "Just quit asking you, will you,"

"Sorry, man. Y'know we're just trying to help you," Stinger piped up.

"Guys, I appreciate that, but I'm fine, really!" Marcus insisted and looked down at the floor. The others looked at him and each other questionably and worryingly but decided not to press on in asking Marcus what was wrong. Perhaps later he would tell them or they would find out.

**BEEEEEEPPPP!**

Suddenly, the whole barracks went a dark red colour and the blare of an alarm filled the air. Marcus jolted upright and watched, along with everyone else in the barracks, Eve run past to the end of the barracks and opened the door. She paused in the doorway and talked to a passing general before she turned to face everyone in the barracks.

"Alright, everyone, let's go, let's go!"

"What's going on, Eve?" Matthew, who was sitting on the bunk bed across from the one Marcus was sitting on, asked.

"It's the Covenant, they're attacking," Eve replied.

Like a herd of cattle moving out into a field, everyone in the taskforce ran towards the barracks entrance. As Marcus ran towards the entrance, he completely forgot about his backpack under his bed, which concealed an object that was important to him and reminded him of someone he cared about.


	19. Fighting to escape

Marcus ran out into the corridor, which was filled with soldiers and generals running in all directions. Chaos filled the air and he began frantically looking around for anyone else he knew or any of his group. He moved to the side of the corridor as a squad of marines ran past, sergeant John leading them, and a marine accidentally ran into Matthew.

"Marcus!" someone called and he turned so he was facing the left end of the corridor to see Tyler standing with Stinger, Alice, Tanya and another woman taskforce soldier against the left wall of the corridor, waving to him. "C'mon, man!"

Marcus nodded and pushed his way through the corridor to them. When he reached them, they ran down the corridor to a kind of intersection and turned left into a smaller corridor that led to a large blast door, which closed as they ran towards it. When they reached it, the door opened automatically for them and they ran through into the armoury, which was a large square shaped room that was about one hundred and ten feet long and seventy feet in width. In the left corner of the room next to the doorway were two fenced off power generators and another door was on the right wall near the other end of the armoury. Scattered along the walls of the armoury were crates with weapons on them or attached to the walls. There were machine guns, rifles, grenades, pistols, you name it. The door on the right wall near the other end of the room closed as they entered the barracks and around the barracks were several other marines. As Marcus' group separated to get their weapons, one of the marines, who had a kind of camcorder thing attached to his shoulder, looked up at them quickly before he resumed loading ammunition into his weapon.

"Ah, good, another squad of taskforce soldiers," John said. Marcus, who was getting a few fragmentation grenades after collecting a battle rifle and a few clips of ammunition, looked over to him and ran over to him. The others, who had all got their ammunition, joined him.

"What are our orders, sarge?" Tyler asked him.

"We need to get the workers of this base out of here quickly," he said. "Problem is, most of you guys are busy protecting the perimeter, so you all are pretty much all that's left that can help evacuate the workers," he turned to Marcus. "You lead them, Marcus," he said. "Head over to the landing zone you arrived to the planet on and defend it against any Covenant,"

"Yes, sir," Marcus replied. "Alright, let's go,"

He led the squad out of the armoury and into the warzone outside. Several explosions erupted overhead and a banshee, with a trail of smoke emanating from the rear of the main section of the fighter, zoomed over the armoury and disappeared from sight. An explosion followed a moment later. Several blasts flew up into the air and the screams and shouts of Human soldiers and Covenant soldiers fighting nearby filled their ears.

"Where abouts is this landing pad?" Tanya asked.

"Follow me," Marcus told her and he ran around the armoury and ran the armoury towards a large warehouse which he remembered was the one he had entered when he had come here. The others followed.

As they did, Tyler noticed someone else with the group. There was another woman in the group running next to him. She had brown skin and was about 5ft 11 with a pretty face that had small blue eyes, a small nose and soft red cheeks. Her body was athletic and she had black hair which was just visible through a cream coloured hijab she had over her head and she was wearing a green bodysuit.

"I didn't know you were part of our squad," he said to her and she looked at him.

"I'm not really," she replied. "I just saw Alice and I joined up with her. I used to work with her at the TechCorps," she held up her hand to him. "My name's Alima,"

He shook her hand. "Tyler," he replied. "Never heard the name Alima before,"

"It's Arabic, you idiot," Alice said as she ran alongside them. Tyler blushed.

"Oh, I-I knew that," he said, trying to act as if he had where her name had originated from.

Alima and Alice rolled their eyes and the three ran on after Marcus, Stinger and Tanya. When the group ran around the corner of the warehouse, they saw the remains of a large metallic landing pad scattered on the ground. Several pelicans were scattered around the desert-like landscape, parked on the ground with their landing gear unfolded and holding the craft in place as many marines, medics and workers rushed to and from the pelicans. Several large AA missile turrets were placed about the sides of the enormous landing zone.

"Hey you guys! Over here!" a sergeant near one of the pelicans shouted, waving his arm at them. Marcus led the group over to the sergeant. "Glad you guys could make it here," he said to them. "We've got word of Covenant forces heading towards the landing zone. A wraith and a few ghosts might be among them so you guys need to get to the outer housing estate and hold off their advance,"

"Wait, what do we do about the ghosts and the wraith if they're among the Covenant?" Stinger asked.

"Don't worry, there's team of heavy weapons soldiers there already," the sergeant reassured him. "Alright, get moving, quick,"

"You heard him, let's go," Marcus said and he led the squad through the crowds of workers, marines and medics, Tanya almost getting lost as she was stopped by two medics quickly trying to load a wounded worker onto one of the pelicans but, thankfully, she managed to quickly re-join the group, towards a small long rectangular building with a small doorway on the side facing them and two long steel walls coming out of the sides, no doubt separating the base from the estate for the workers.

The group ran through the doorway into a long rectangular shaped room, which took up the whole of the interior of the building, and ran down it towards a long corridor that led to a doorway at the end. The squad ran down the corridor towards the door at the end, which opened as they approached it.

"INCOMING!"

BOOM! An explosion erupted a few metres in front of the doorway, the force of the blast throwing the squad to the floor. As they picked themselves up, a few marines ran out from one of the small square shaped houses, which was set in a fenced area with a small patch of green grass in front of it, as were all the other houses, which made this estate look like a small residential area outside Las Vegas, and fire a barrage past it into a large open desert-like area.

"C'mon, we better go help!" Marcus said.

The squad ran out into the battle zone. A few explosions erupted all around them, one blowing apart a parked SUV, another landing on a house and destroying it completely, as they headed towards the squad. One of the marines saw them as he reloaded a clip of ammo into his weapon.

"Oh God, we're glad you're here!" he said, relieved.

"What's the situation?" Marcus asked.

"Huge force of Covenant heading across from a weapons testing area towards this place," the marine told them. "Too many Covenant to count and I think there's a wraith with 'em as well,"

"Damnit!" Marcus cursed under his breath. "Alright, don't worry. We're here to help,"

The marine nodded. "Head inside," he said, pointing to a hole in the side of one of the wooden square shaped houses.

The squad ran through into a small square room with a small bed against the right wall with a small bedside cabinet next to it. A tin holographic device placed along the floor along the next wall was for a holographic television to come out. In the corners of the room were several plants and there was a corridor on the right wall, just a few feet down from the bed, that led off to a kitchen and a bathroom. There was a small hole in the ceiling that showed the sky to the squad inside the building. On the wall next to the bed was a small window that showed the view of a small dirt road and, beyond that, the great expanse of desert-like landscape that seemed to stretch on in all directions, and scattered across it were the remains of several UNSC warthogs and mongooses with the occasional Covenant ghost or banshee in sight as well Several dead bodies of Human and Covenant soldiers were scattered about as well but what really caught the eyes of the squad were the moving Covenant soldiers, heading directly towards the house!

"Spread out!" Marcus ordered and he and Tanya aimed their weapons out through the window next to the bed across the desert-like landscape as Stinger and Alima took one of the windows in the kitchen nearest the wall that bordered the entrance room and Alice and Tyler took the other window near the wall that bordered the bathroom.

Marcus' eyes scanned every part of the desert-like landscape in front of the house. In the sky above the landscape were several Covenant seraph fighters engaged in dogfights with the UNSC long sword fighters. Several fell out of the sky and crashed to the ground, exploding in pillars of fire, but still the dogfight continued on.

Suddenly, Tanya fired a burst of ammo out across the landscape at the remains of a ghost.

"What is it?" Marcus asked her.

"I saw a Grunt," she replied.

Suddenly, more bursts of gunfire exploded, though they came from outside. A second later, a tall and bulky figure rose up from behind the remains of a warthog and charged out towards the house, firing a barrage of blasts as it went. It was an Elite dressed in light blue armour, marking it as a minor. Marcus fired a burst of ammo at the creature, hitting it in the chest. The Elite roared and staggered sideways, falling to the ground. Another burst of ammo flew out from behind the side of the building and struck the Elite in the head, killing it.

"Oh crap!" a voice from somewhere outside shouted all of a sudden.

"What is it?" another replied.

"The wraith is back! It's coming in from the east!"

Marcus and Tanya's eyes went wide and Tanya pulled herself forward, with Marcus grabbing her around the waist and holding her forward, to look out of the window. Her breath was instantly taken from her. The marine who had greeted them was right. Hovering a few inches above the ground was an enormous seat-like shaped vehicle. The wraith, and it was heading straight towards them, just fifty feet away!

"Oh no!" Tanya said, pushing herself back into the house. "Where are those special weapons soldiers?" she asked Marcus.

"I don't know," he replied.

BOOM! An explosion filled the air and Marcus looked out of the window, quickly glancing left to see the others in the squad also looking out of the windows of the house, to see the back of one of the houses a few metres right of the one they were in collapse to the ground. The wraith had fired a mortar blast at it. Then, Marcus went wide-eyed when it turned towards their building. Luckily, a grenade landed on the vehicle and exploded and the wraith turned towards the building it had just fired on again, hoping to finish off those it had not killed the first time it had struck the building.

Marcus withdrew back into the building and ran to the hole they had entered the building through and stuck his head out to see the squad of marines taking cover behind the other half of the still standing house that had been hit by the wraith.

"Sir," he shouted out and the marine that had talked to him when they had arrived looked at him. "Where are the heavy weapons soldiers?" he asked.

"Here, man!" another voice piped up before the marine could reply and two marines ran out from behind him towards the house, one carrying a rocket launcher, the other two large crates of rocket ammo. However, as they were about half-way to the house, a barrage of blasts suddenly hit the ground all around them and the two ran as fast as they could to the house, Marcus moving out of the way as they dived the last few feet into it.

"You guys alright?" Marcus asked.

"Yeah, thanks," one of them replied.

"They've set up a plasma turret emplacement!" Stinger's voice shouted from the kitchen.

Marcus and the two marines stood up and looked out of the window with Tanya. Stinger was right. Placed either end of the remains of the ghost, which Tanya had fired on, was a plasma turret with a deployable Covenant plasma turret which stood on a single thin, diagonal-like stand that was attached to the top of a circular platform about the size of the palm of one of Marcus' hands. The Grunts fired at the window and the four ducked, narrowly avoiding some of the blasts as they flew over their heads, hitting the walls and ceiling.

"Jeez!" one of the marine said. "We won't be able to take out that wraith as long as those things are there,"

"Don't worry," Marcus replied. He ran into the corridor and shouted out: "Guys, concentrate your fire on the two plasma turrets near the remains of the ghost!"

A few shouts came in reply and Marcus and Tanya ran to the window and open fired on the ghosts' remains with the others also firing as well. One of the grunts was hit and yelled loudly as it flipped backwards onto It's stomach, dead. The other Grunt squealed and ran from the turret, hoping to hide behind the remains of a nearby warthog, but failed as Tanya fired a burst of ammo at the creature, killing it.

"Alright, It's clear. Go!" Marcus said to the marines with the rocket launcher. They nodded and ran over to the window, Marcus and Tanya stepping aside to give them room.

"Alright, lock onto the wraith!" the marine with the rocket projectile placed on his shoulder said to his comrade, who nodded and moved the weapon slightly to the right before stopping.

"Right, load the weapon," he said and the marine behind him loaded the rocket projectile into the rocket launcher.

"Alright go!" the marine said, patting his friend's shoulder before ducking down and covering his ears. Marcus and Tanya crouched and also covered their ears.

A whooshing sound filled the air in the house, followed by an explosion and the marine, Marcus and Tanya looked up out of the window to see the wraith now a pile of metallic remains on the floor, a huge hole in the middle of the front of the vehicle. Part of the mortar blast cannon was scattered on the ground behind the destroyed vehicle. The Covenant soldier that had been piloting it must have been blown apart completely by the projectile.

"Nice one!" Marcus said. "Is that the last of the Covenant?" he asked himself, looking out of the window and looking around.

He got his answer when a small craft suddenly shot out from behind the remains of a banshee. It was a ghost and piloting it was a Grunt. Then, another four more ghosts followed from behind the remains of other vehicles scattered up and down the desert-like landscape.

"Quick, reload!" the marine with the rocket launcher placed on his shoulder said to his comrade, who scrambled frantically to reload the heavy weapon.

Suddenly, one of the Grunts giggled evilly and fired a barrage of blasts from the ghosts' cannons at the window. One of the blasts struck the marine with the rocket launcher in the face, throwing him backwards onto the floor.

"JAKE!" the marine behind him screamed. "YOU COVENANT BASTARDS!"

Seething with anger over the death of his comrade, the marine grabbed the rocket launcher, loaded a shot into it and fired a rocket at one of the ghosts. It missed and hit the warthog remains behind it. The Grunt laughed at the failure of the marine to hit his vehicle and responded with a barrage of blasts at the window. The marine ducked and most of the blasts hit Marcus' bodysuit, making it light up. The holographic meter appeared above his wrist and the level in the bar was yellow and blinking bright red. Then, it rose up to the top, turning green before the holographic meter finally disappeared.

The marine with the rocket launcher loaded another shot into his weapon and fired again, this time hitting his target. The ghost that had fired at the building and killed the previous marine had tried swerving to avoid the rocket but failed to move quickly enough and the rocket hit the middle of the ghost. An explosion filled the air and the ghost broke in two, falling to the ground with the crash. The body of the Grunt fell to the floor alongside the remains of the vehicle, dead.

"LOOK OUT!"

BOOM! Another explosion rocked the house, only this time it happened on the roof and, before the three could blink, the ceiling caved in. Dust and smoke filled the air and they dived to the floor covering their heads as the rubble rained down from above.

Finally, after a moment's quiet, Marcus gingerly lifted his head and looked around.

"It's alright," he said and the marine and Tanya lifted their heads. All three of them looked up and saw a larger hole in the ceiling.

"Wonder what did that?" the marine asked himself.

"Watch it! Ghosts!" a voice shouted from outside.

The marine with the rocket launcher jumped to his feet and ran outside through the hole. Tanya stood up and brushed the dust off herself.

"We better go," she said to Marcus, who shook his head and brushed the dust out of his black hair, and she ran outside after the marine, stopping by the hole and firing bursts of ammo from her battle rifle. Marcus turned and ran down the corridor to the kitchen.

"Guys, c'mon!" he said. "We're getting out of here!"

He ran back down the corridor with the rest of the squad in tow. They ran through the hole to see another marine lying dead on the ground a few feet away near the remains of another ghost with the body of the Grunt that had been piloting it lying alongside it. The other three ghosts were nowhere to be seen.

"Where the other ghosts?" Marcus asked.

"They've retreated," Tanya replied. "We killed this one and they fled,"

Then, their ear radios crackled to life.

_"KZK…this is base to all soldiers near the worker estate," _the voice said. _"You are advised to evacuate. I repeat, evacuate! Get to any remaining pelicans and flee to the nearest ship. Good luck, out. _

"Well we better get going," Alice said.

Marcus nodded and the squad ran back towards the rectangular building, which was smoking along the sides and roof, having been struck by several blasts, as the other marines quickly headed towards other buildings scattered up and down the fence. The door to the long corridor section opened as they approached it and they ran into the corridor to the room at the end. When they reached the room, they saw a large hole in the ceiling and a pile of rubble on the floor below the hole. It was quite a shocking thing to see, as a reminder of how powerful a normal Covenant blast from a phantom or banshee or wraith really was, but they shook the image out of their minds and ran over to the doorway at the other end of the room and ran through so they were back outside.

Ahead of them, the landing zone was almost cleared, apart from two pelicans, one of which was just taking off, the landing gear folding itself back up as the craft flew east away from the landing zone, disappearing over the smoke columns. On the last pelican, a few medics were loading the last of the wounded onto the craft. The squad ran over to the pelican.

"Glad you guys could make it," one of the medics said. "C'mon, hope on board and let's get outta here,"

They nodded and climbed on board. There were three wounded marines on the pelican, who were placed on the resting area seats, with two able bodied marines standing near the cog pit door. As the squad climbed on board, Marcus heard a familiar voice talk from the cog pit and he rushed down the resting area to the cog pit. Sitting in the pilot's chair was a familiar face.

"Brian!" he exclaimed. His friend turned and smiled at him.

"Glad you're alive, Marcus," he said. "Sit yourself down, we're heading off to the _Axiom_,"

Marcus nodded and sat down on one of the end seats of the right side of the resting area. The others either sat down next to or across from him or stayed standing up at the end of the pelican. A few moments later, the pelican jolted slightly as it rose into the air. When it had risen about twenty feet into the air, the pelican flew forward away from the base.

Across from him, Tyler and Alima, who had sat down across from him waited for the pelican to reach the _Axiom_. As Tyler sighed and rested his back against the metal wall of the pelican, he noticed Alima with her eyes closed and was talking under her breath in Arabic. He had a faint idea of what she was doing.

"Praying?" he inquired.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Yes. It's tradition to pray five times a day,"

Tyler smiled. "I don't really believe in any religion," he said. "But-" he rested a hand on her shoulder. "Can you do me a favour?"

"Of course,"

"Pray for both of us,"

She smiled at him. "Of course,"

Tyler smiled back. "Thanks,"

"Holy God!" Stinger said.

Marcus, Tyler and Alima looked up from where they were sitting and they got up and walked down the pelican, stopping alongside Stinger with Tanya and Alice. All of them were shocked about what they were witnessing.

The scene in front of them was a greater view of the warzone. Many buildings were on fire or were destroyed. The remains of many UNSC and Covenant craft were scattered about the ground and were engaged in dogfights in the air. They watched a pelican fall out of the sky with a burning wing and a half destroyed rear section. It crashed into the ground and exploded, no doubt killing everyone on board.

Tanya sighed. "I can't watch this," she said and she walked back to the other end of the resting area and sat down.

Tyler and Alima joined her. Marcus looked on a little longer, watching another pelican be blown out of the sky and two seraph fighters launch two dive attacks on a group of buildings not far from the base before he decided he could no longer watch what was happening and walked to the end of the resting area again and sat down and buried his face in his hands for a moment before resting his head on his hands, filled with disbelief and sadness.

He could not believe this was happening! This could not be happening! Reach was supposed to be a formidable planet and with the taskforce, it was supposed to be very difficult for the Covenant to seize, but that did not look like it was the case. In fact, it was the complete opposite, and the worst thought for the UNSC and Humanity. It was being taken swiftly and quickly and by the rate it was falling, there was no chance it would last through the night. He just had to face it. It was over for Reach and the taskforce and everyone on the planet. It was over. Just over.

Marcus sighed and reached into his chest pocket, but felt nothing in there. He could have sworn he had it i-his eyes went wide with realisation. Oh no!

H-he had left it in his bag back at the base.

**Back at the barracks**

The corridor of the main base was completely shot up with large holes in the walls and ceiling. Wires were dangling out from the holes in the ceiling with sparks coming out of them and there were several dead bodies scattered about in the corridor. There were a few spots of blood on the wall and the door at the left end of the corridor where the barracks door was on had been caved in during the fighting. A worker lay in the small room on the other side of the doorway, a single blast wound on his chest from where a Jackal had fired on him.

Then, three tall and bulky figures emerged from the left corridor in the intersection and walked down the corridor. They were Elites, all dressed in gold armour and all wielding plasma rifles.

"The Human taskforce soldiers are thought to have been dwelling here somewhere!" one of the Elites walking behind the leading Elite growled.

"It is much displeasure to us that they have already left!" the other following Elite replied. "If we could have at least been secretly placed here, we could have killed them all in their sleep,"

"Yes!" the leading Elite said. "Especially those ones who attacked our ship and destroyed it!"

These Elites had been lucky. They had managed to escape an attack by five taskforce soldiers on a scorpion tank yesterday that had resulted in the destruction of their CCS battle cruiser. Fury had gripped them since then and they had been dying for revenge, and they could have well and truly gotten that revenge if they had, as the first of the Elites to speak had put it, been secretly dropped onto the planet.

The three Elites stopped outside the barracks door and the leading Elite pounded it hard with his foot. A small dent appeared in the door and the Elite kicked it as hard as he could and the door opened having been damaged and malfunctioned. The three Elites stepped into the barracks, scanning it with their eyes to make sure there were no Humans waiting to ambush them.

"Search the room!" the leading Elite barked at his two comrades. "Find anything useful, and try and also find anything that may lead us to the destination of the five meddlers!"

The other two zealot Elites nodded and one walked off to the left side of the room and the other to the right. The leading Elite walked down the room. Behind him, he heard his other two comrades riffle through the beds and belongings of the taskforce soldiers. One of the Elites turned over the bunk bed he was searching, creating a loud crash, and picked up a bag that had been placed on the floor underneath it and began searching through, throwing out a small book and a pistol and several holographic photo holders.

"It is just Human rubbish, sir!" the Elite said. "I cannot believe they keep these kind of things!"

"Just keep searching!" the leading Elite barked.

He reached the single bed at the end and saw the plans for the CCS battle cruiser laid out on the bed. He looked at them, growled and tore them apart and then, out of anger, overturned the bed and caused it to break as it hit the floor.

_Human Meddlers! _He thought with fury and gritted teeth.

He turned to the bunk bed next to it and saw a small backpack placed on the top bunk bed. The Elite grabbed it and tore it open and poured out what was in it onto the floor and began moving the items about with his foot, trying to see if there was anything useful in there. Just a book, a photograph in a picture frame of a young woman with brown hair and a young man with black hair and a small pistol with several clips of ammo. Nothing useful!

The Elite turned to the next bunk bed and flipped it over, causing the mattresses and the pillows to fall out onto the floor. Another bag was placed underneath it and the Elite grabbed it, tore it open and poured out what was in it onto the floor. It was still the same things. A book, a holographic picture holder, which held a holographic photo of a young man with black hair and young woman with brown hair, and a pistol with a few clips of ammo, still nothing usef-

Wait! The Elite looked down at the holographic photo and picked it up and looked at it. That young couple...they were... He looked down at the picture frame in the pile from the first bag he had torn open and picked up the picture frame and looked at it from the holographic photo. They were the same, and… He squinted his eyes a little and looked at the face of the man.

It was him! He…he was one of the Humans who had been in the force that had attacked their ship yesterday. Anger filled the Elite and he grasped the picture frame so tight that it snapped in two in his hand. He thought about doing the same to the holographic photo but it was then he recognized the woman as well.

"I saw her…not just a few moments ago," he muttered to himself.

They had been dropped by a small ruined house several minutes earlier before coming to here, which they had just missed a couple of Human pelicans taking off by mere seconds, and they had seen several dead Human soldiers and some of them had the same uniforms these soldiers they had fought yesterday had on. Among them was this woman, and if she and the man he had seen yesterday were in a picture…

The Elite growled in satisfaction. Oh, this was going to be a perfect way to get back at that meddler Human.

"Sire!" one of the zealot Elites called and the Elite turned to look down the room towards them. "We have just received word; the _Excommunicator _is preparing to begin firing,"

The Elite nodded. "Very well. I have all that we need here," he held up the holographic photo in his hand. "Let us leave this wretched place," and they ran out of the barracks to quickly get to a phantom before their ships began firing.

**Back on the pelican**

Marcus sat staring down at the floor worryingly. He could not believe he had left probably one of the most cherished things he had in his life back at the base, which was now probably being torn apart by the Covenant. Oh, this was just great! It had the photograph of him and someone very important to him. Her. Anya.

"Alright, everyone back there, hang on!" Brian's voice called from the cog pit. "We're nearing the _Axiom_,"

A glimmer hope seemed to fill those in the resting area. They were getting close to getting off of Reach and to safety. Tyler and Alima smiled at each other, both ecstatic that they were getting to safety. Tanya looked up from where she was sitting, which was a few feet up from Marcus, and looked through the cog pit door to try and get a glimpse of the _Axiom_.

"Echo 543, this is Delta 075," Brian's voice said from the cog pit.

"_Roger that, Delta 075. We have wounded on board and are heading towards the Axiom," _a voice replied from the cog pit radio.

"Copy, Echo 543, we have seven taskforce soldiers on board and will be joining you to the Axio-"

Whilst Brian had been replying, Marcus happened to look up and saw a seraph fighter fly towards them. His eyes widened with fear but before he could shout out to Brian, who had just stopped talking, about the danger…

BOOM! The pelican was engulfed in a fireball and it shook violently. Fire seemed to pour into the resting area, engulfing everything. Several men and women in the resting area screamed. Marcus yelled out and fell to the floor. He heard Tanya and Alima scream and Tyler shout back in reply. Someone knocked into him.

Then, after what seemed like forever, the fire finally died down and Marcus looked up from the floor to see several people also lift their heads up. Tanya, Tyler and Alima had fallen to the floor whilst Stinger and Alice had fallen onto the seats on the left side of the resting area, Stinger shielding Alice's body with his.

"Everyone alright?" one of the marines asked as he sat up from the floor.

"Yeah!" was the reply

Suddenly, one of the marines shouted and pointed out through the resting area entrance. At first, Marcus, who looked to where the marine was pointing, thought it was another seraph fighter, but when he looked out through the resting area entrance, he saw it was worse, much worse. It was a trail of smoke and that could only mean one thing

"This is Echo 543, we have taken a hit to our rear and have sustained damage to our engines!" Brian's voice shouted from the cog pit as he struggled to gain control of the pelican as it began to shake violently in mid-air.

A smaller explosion erupted on the side of the craft, shaking it violently, and Stinger and Alice fell off the seat, as did one of the wounded marines, who Tyler and Alima caught to stop him from being hurt.

"Mayday! Mayday!" Brian shouted. "This is Echo 543! We are going down! I repeat, we are going down!"

The craft suddenly shot forward as if it been thrown like a pebble being tossed and began to tip from side to side slightly. Marcus looked up from the floor and saw the other pelican Brian had been talking to about three hundred feet behind them. Then, as if it had lost all power, it flew forward again, though this time the ground seemed to get closer.

"EVERYBODY HANG ON!" Brian yelled out from the cog pit.

Everyone either dived to the floor and covered their heads or placed themselves over their wounded comrades, trying to shield them with their bodies.

The last thing Marcus could remember was blackness.


	20. Defence of the Axiom

"Ugh… W-what happened?"

Within the ruins of pelican Echo 543, a tall man with black hair, blue eyes and dressed in a green bodysuit lifted his head up. It was Marcus. As his vision kicked back into his eyes, he saw that the resting area had been bent upwards slightly and that there were three large holes in it, one in the ceiling and two on the left wall.

"Ooooooh!" someone groaned, a female voice.

Marcus looked down the resting area and saw another woman in a green bodysuit raise her head. It was Tanya. She had a small bruise over the side of her head and part of her bodysuit was a little ripped on the shoulder. Next to her, Stinger and Alice sat up, both groaning but they looked okay. Then, Tyler gasped a little as he sat up rubbed the back of his head. Next to him, Alima groaned and sat up. Both were okay.

The marines around them, however, were not. They did not have the bodysuits to protect them and so when the pelican crashed, all of them were killed instantly. Marcus sighed, guilt filling him like water filling a tank, as he looked down at the body of one of the marines.

_Survivor's guilt _he thought to himself.

Then, an explosion outside brought the group back into reality and Stinger looked out of the resting area.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed. "Look where we are, guys!" he said.

The rest of the group scrambled to the end of the resting area and looked out. In front of them were two enormous landing clamps that were holding a large shape. Their eyes followed the clamp up and they found themselves looking at the bottom of a large ship. It was the one they were hoping to escape on. It was the _Axiom_.

"At least we arrived to it," Stinger said.

"Yeah, but the problem is now we have to find a way to get on board," Tyler replied.

CRASH! Another long sword fighter crash landed nearby and exploded in a fireball. A banshee flew overhead, firing an ion blast onto the remains of the long sword fighter just to finish off any one that might have survived the crash.

"Hey you guys," a voice called and the group looked left to see a marine waving at them. "C'mon! We need your help!"

"You guys go on," Marcus said to the group. "I just check the cog pit,"

Tanya nodded. "Alright, let's go," she said and she climbed out of the resting area and ran over to the marine. The rest of the group, apart from Marcus, followed close behind. Marcus ran back the resting area, being careful not to step on or trip over the bodies of the dead marine, to the cog pit.

"Hey Brian!" he called. "C'mon, we have to go!"

He stuck his head inside the cog pit and went wide-eyed at what he saw.

The co-pilot was lying dead with his head against the control panel, which was bent and smashed in some places, having been killed instantly. Brian was lying upright in his seat with his neck cocked to one side.

_Oh no! Please don't be dead! _Marcus mentally pleaded as he stepped near Brian's body and placed two fingers on his pulse on his neck.

Marcus sighed. He was dead. The crash must have broken his neck. At least, though, he could be thankful it was a quick death rather than a long and painful one.

"Okay, we need you guys to help defend the _Axiom_," a voice from outside ordered and Marcus looked through the smashed cog pit window to see the marine leading the squad towards a large building.

The building was about seventy feet tall and about twenty five feet wide with a large cube section base. On the top of that base was a smaller cube section that had a large circular platform placed on the top of it. Coming out of the platform were two metallic cylinders about ten feet tall. Sticking out of the cylinder were two thick pipe-like section that led up to a large cube shaped object, that was connected to the top of the cylinders, with a large cannon sticking out of the front of it. On the back of the cube section of the cannon was a small seat. Going up the sides of the two cube sections of the building were flights of stairs that came to an end at the top of the smaller cube section placed on top of the larger cube section next to a ladder that led up to the platform. The entire thing was a turret emplacement.

Marcus ran out of the cog pit and down the resting area to the end of the pelican. He climbed out and ran over to join his squad, who were waiting for him at the bottom of the flight of stairs, who was explaining the situation to them.

"We think the Covenant might try and launch a few ships to start glassing the planet," he told them. "We can barely hold the line in the skies so we need you guys to help us,"

"Don't worry," Marcus told the marine as he reached them. "We won't let any Covenant get near the _Axiom_,"

"Thanks, man," the marine replied. "Alright, get to your stations. Let's go,"

The marine ran off and turned the corner at the end of the building. Marcus ran up the steps with his squad close behind him. As they climbed higher, a better view of the landscape became visible. When they reached the top of the base cube section, Marcus stopped and gazed out over the great expanse of land in front of him. The desert-like landscape stopped only a few hundred metres away from the turret emplacement. Beyond that was the grasslands and fields that he and his squad had seen many times over the past few days. A few hundred feet behind the border where the desert and the grasslands met was a small river with a metallic bridge going over it. A road led to the bridge and from the bridge far off into the distance. For a moment, Marcus was entranced by the view and he forgot about the war going on all around him.

"Marcus!" Stinger's voice called from behind him, snapping him back into reality. He looked over his shoulder to see Stinger at the front of the group running up the stairs. "You with us, man?"

Marcus shook his head slightly. "Yeah, right, sorry," he replied. "Okay, let's head up to the top of the emplacement,"

They continued up the steps towards the ladder at the top of the smaller cube section. However, just as they reached the ladder, their radios suddenly crackled to life with activity.

_"COVENANT SHIPS HAVE ENTERED THE ATMOPSHERE!"_

_"We've got reports of glassing all over the planet!"_

_"All UNSC ships are to leave immediately! I repeat, all UNSC ships are to leave immediately!"_

Then, they heard a transmission that made their hearts almost stop.

"_A Covenant CCS battle cruiser is in the atmosphere! All UNSC fighters…wait! Oh God! It's-It's descending! __It's headed towards the__ Axiom__!" _

The group looked at each other with wide-eyes. A Covenant ship was heading towards the _Axiom_! If it got to it, then the ship was doomed.

Marcus rushed over to the ladder and began climbing up it as quickly as he could. The others followed close behind him.

Suddenly, a light lit up the sky behind him and Marcus, who was about three quarters up the ladder, turned and looked behind him to see a barrage of enormous purple blasts shoot down from the clouds and hit the ground, exploding on impact and making the ground shake. Then, a large shadow appeared in the clouds and it gradually grew bigger. Then, after watching it for about ten seconds, the bottom of a CCS battle cruiser appeared out of the clouds.

Marcus swore under his breath and climbed up the rest of the ladder to the platform at the top. When he reached it, he ran over to a small circular hole near the other end of the platform and stepped in it. At once, he shot up into the air towards the seat at the back of the cube section as if he had been grabbed by a pair of invisible hands. He slowed to a halt next to the seat and he grabbed hold of it and pulled himself into it.

"Hurry, Marcus!" Alima called from below.

Marcus looked up at the sky and saw the CCS battle cruiser flying closer towards them. By the rate it was moving, he had only a few moments to stop it before it reached the _Axiom_.

He activated the cannon and grabbed hold of a control stick and pulled it backwards so the cannon rose up until it was pointing at the bottom of the Covenant ship. He grabbed the firing stick and pushed down on the trigger. At once, the cannon emitted a loud charging noise and Marcus saw a bar on the control panel in front of him turn green and then yellow and then orange before finally stopping at a dark red colour. He and the others looked up at the cannon hopefully and began mentally praying it would fire in time to stop it from destroying the _Axiom_ and the many hundreds on board it.

Finally, the level in the bar on the control panel reached the top and emitted a loud beeping sound. Marcus grabbed the firing stick and pushed down on the trigger. At once, the cannon shook violently as it fired a super magnetic projectile towards the Covenant ship.

"Cover your ears!" Marcus shouted down to the group, who obeyed and crouched low or dived to the platform floor, covering their heads and ears. Marcus quickly got out of the seat and jumped into the anti-gravity lift and hovered down to the platform and dived down on the platform floor, covering his head and waiting for the inevitable explosion.

**BOOM! **The air itself seemed to explode as the charged projectile slammed into the bottom of the CCS battle cruiser. Marcus looked up a little to see hundreds of explosions erupt along the bottom of the cruiser. Two large explosions blew out from the hanger on the left side of the ship, throwing out large chunks of debris and ship and fighter remains into the air. Marcus placed his head down again and covered it as much as he could with his arms.

Finally, a second major explosion blew the ship in two. The back section of the ship fell down to the grassland surface and crashed into it, making the ground rumble. The front half exploded again, throwing large chunks into the air. Some of the group looked up and went wide-eyed.

"Quick, get off the platform!" Stinger shouted.

"What is it?" Alice asked him and he responded by pointing up at the sky. She looked up and saw the reason why.

A large piece of what had been one of the spires on the bottom of the craft had shot up into the air when the front half of the ship had exploded and it was falling, directly towards them.

The group ran over to the ladder and slid down it to the top of the smaller cube section and began running down the steps as fast as they could. Above them, the section of spire fell down towards the turret hundreds of miles an hour as Reach's gravity pulled the object in.

Moments later, it slammed into the turret emplacement, destroying it completely.


	21. Heading to a new place

**One hour later**

**Date: April 10th, 2552**

**Location: **_**Axiom**_** landing pad, Reach, Niobe Aino system**

Reach, once a UNSC planet of the Human race, now it was a warzone. Large sections of the planet had been glassed by Humanity's enemy: the Covenant when they attacked earlier on in the day. Thousands of UNSC soldiers and workers had been killed, along with many thousands of Covenant soldiers and many of their ships, but still the Covenant were able to win the battle and were now mopping up the last of the Human forces on the planet in the few remaining pockets of resistance. They would fall, that was certain, but not without a fight.

"Uuugh!"

On the ground next to the remains of the cannon turret near the _Axiom _landing pad were several Human men and women dressed in red and green bodysuits. One of the men lifted himself up from the ground. He had black hair, though it was covered in dust, and was heavily built and dressed in a green bodysuit. It was Marcus.

"Oooooh!" he groaned as he stood up from the ground and brushed the dust out of his hair.

He looked around at the landscape around him. The grassland that he had seen when he had climbed into the cannon turret earlier on to shoot down a Covenant CCS battle cruiser that had threatened the _Axiom_ was now more of a charred smoking desert. The other buildings that had been scattered around at the bottom of the turret were also just piles of rubble and, turning to look at the weapon, the turret was now crushed and bended, a large piece of silver metal sticking out of the pile of metallic remains. The large piece of metal, that had been one of the spires on the CCS battle cruiser, had shot up into the sky by the explosion brought onto the ship when Marcus had fired a rail-gun charged projectile at it and then fallen down onto the turret, crushing it from the top down right through the middle of the base of the turret to the ground. Marcus and his squad had been lucky to have gotten out of the way of the object just in time.

Or so he thought.

Limping slightly as his leg hurt from the pain brought on by the fall, as he had jumped about ten feet from the stairway that went up the side of the turret just as the metallic remains of the spire hit the top of the turret, he moved over to Stinger, who was lying on his side about five feet from him.

"St-Simon!" Marcus gasped as he knelt down onto the ground when he reached his friend and turned him over onto his back to reveal a dust covered face with a small scar down his cheek. His eyes were closed and he was not breathing. "Simon!" Marcus said again, patting his face slightly. "C'mon, man, wake up,"

At first, his pleas for his friend had no effect. He just lay there, looking as if he was dead. Then, to Marcus' relief when he just about believed Stinger had been killed, his eyelids moved and opened groggily.

"Oh!" Stinger groaned as he sat up and placed a hand on the back of his head. "Wha-what happened?"

"We lived through the main assault," Marcus replied.

"Oooh!"

"Aaaaah!"

The two looked up to see Tanya and Alima slowly get up from the ground, both brushing themselves clean of dust. Alice and Tyler sat up. All of them were dusty and had bruises and scratch marks from where piece of metal had struck them across their faces and hands.

"Everyone alright?" Marcus asked as he stood up and helped Stinger to his feet.

"Yeah!"

"Yes,"

"I'm good,"

"Uh huh,"

Marcus nodded and looked around to take in the devastation again. Far away were the remains of the battle cruiser he had shot down earlier with the rail-gun. They were lucky to have done so or the _Axiom_ and everyone on it would have been destroyed, and with it their ticket off Re-

Wait! Marcus' eyes went wide at the thought.

_The Axiom! _He turned and his face fell with disbelief.

The landing pad was empty, save for the remains of several shot down pelicans, some of which had been carrying warthogs, but the _Axiom_ was gone.

"What the Hell," he muttered to himself.

"Where's the _Axiom_?" he heard Tyler ask from behind.

"I thought they would have stayed to evacuate us," Alice replied.

"Well they haven't," Marcus said, turning to face the others. He sighed in annoyance. "I can't believe they've left without us," he added.

Silence fell among the group again as some of them began looking up at landing pad with disbelief. They could not believe the _Axiom_had left them! They had tried to defend it, and yet they were left behind! How were they supposed to get off the planet now?

"So what do we do now?" Tyler asked after a few moments.

Marcus looked at him and then at the faces of the rest of the group, all of who were looking to him now for guidance. What were they to do though? Their only hope of escape was gone, they were basically defenceless, save for their bodysuits and their hand-to-hand fighting skills, and they were far from any other UNSC forces, which were unlikely to have also survived. What were they to do now?

After a few moments, Marcus sighed.

"We'll search around at the nearby bases for any other UNSC forces," he told the squad. "See if they have any other ships there, though we can only hope they do,"

"And if they don't?" Tyler inquired.

"Then I don't know what we're gonna do," he paused for a moment and looked over his shoulder at the pelicans and the warthogs that lay on the ground next to them. His eyes searched the vehicles until they rested on a passenger warthog that was laying on It's side, though it looked to be in working condition. He turned his head back to his squad and said: "Alright, let's go," and he ran over towards the pelicans. The squad followed him.

When they reached the warthog, they all gathered on the left of the vehicle, which was where the top of it was facing, and, with all their strength, pushed it back onto It's wheels.

"Alright, climb in," Marcus ordered and they did so. He got into the front passenger seat whilst Stinger climbed into the driver's seat and Alice, Alima, Tanya and Tyler climbed into the back of the vehicle. Stinger started the vehicle. The engine hummed loudly. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator and the tires screeched loudly as the vehicle shot forward away from the landing pad and in the direction of the remains of the CCS battle cruiser in the distance.

"Where exactly are we going?" Tanya asked Marcus.

"To the _Michigan _base," he replied. "Hopefully, the ship'll be there waiting for us,"


	22. Defending the Michigan

**One hour later**

In the past hour since the squad had left the _Axiom_ main base, they had seen nothing but devastation. Much of the fields and small groups of trees that had dotted the areas around the base were now reduced to desert-like landscape, only it was not sand, it was hard boiling earth that had been scorched by the Covenant when they had been glassing it earlier on. They had not encountered anyone or anything either. It was as if they were the only living things left on Reach.

Where they were heading to was the base of the Michigan near the mountains to the east, about fifty miles from the _Axiom_ base. They were hoping that the ship would still be there, but that was going to be a hard hope. For all they knew it could have left or been destroyed by the Covenant. Either way brought them panic but they had to check just to make sure. If the _Michigan_ was there, it was probably their only chance to escape from Reach, _if_ it was still there though.

Marcus was still driving the warthog and Stinger was in the passenger with his hand on his chin with his arm being held up by his elbow, lost in thought. In the back seats of the warthog, Alice was asleep, lying against Tyler, who was looking back down the trail they had just crossed as if looking back at the base and wondering what was going on. Across from him, Alima was leaning forward in her seat slightly with her elbow resting on her knee and her hand was in a closed fist in front of her mouth. Next to her, Tanya was looking out ahead of the warthog as if acting like a radar to see if anything was lying in wait ahead of them, or if she could see anything that looked promising that would reassure them the _Michigan_ was still on Reach. All of them had been mostly silent through the trip, the only talk only coming from the four in the back with Stinger sometimes being involved but Marcus had barely spoken. They had all noticed this. He was acting like he was worried about something, but they did not want to task him in case it either upset him or if he did not reply to them.

The truth was, Marcus was worried, but not about something, but someone. That someone was Anya. He had not heard from her, or even seen her since they had left the barracks earlier that morning to prepare to battle the Covenant. It was horrible. He was really worried for her. He had to find out if she was okay.

_Of course she is! _His mind seemed to tell him over and over. _She's alright! She's safe and sound and travelling back to Earth right now! _

Still, though, he could not get the thought out of his mind about what might have happened to her. It made him feel really bad and it really scared him, but what if it was true? What if… What if she was dead?

A stir behind him shook the thoughts out of his mind. It was Alice. She sat upright and rubbed her eyes, blinking them a few times.

"How long have I been asleep?" she asked.

"About forty minutes," Tyler replied. He looked back at Marcus and Stinger. "Are we anywhere near the _Michigan_ base?" he asked.

"Not far," Marcus replied. "About another mile or so,"

Tyler nodded, but felt a bit concerned as he faced ahead of him. Stinger glanced a concerned look at Marcus, as did the others, and he probably noticed them but pretended not to. They were all concerned about him. He had barely spoken to them since they left, but then again, they had not asked if anything was the matter so they had themselves to blame for that.

"Is he okay?" Alima asked.

"I don't think so," Tyler replied, keeping his voice quiet so Marcus would not hear him. "I think he's worried,"

"Well he is worried," Tanya piped up. "He's been acting worried ever since we left. And remember when we were on the pelican?" the others nodded and she looked at Marcus. "But I don't know what he is worried about,"

"Shouldn't we ask him?" Alice asked.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Tyler replied. "I mean, we might annoy him,"

"You know, I can hear you guys back there," Marcus' voice said all of a sudden, making them jump, annoyingly. "Can you stop it please!"

"Sorry," Tyler replied.

"Are you worried about something, Marcus?" Tanya asked him.

"What?" he exclaimed angrily, half-slamming his foot on the brakes, making them all jolt forward in their seats. He calmly drove on and half turned his head to look at her. "I'm fine!"

"You don't sound fine," she pressed on. "You sound worried about something,"

"I'm not worried about anything?"

"Well then why have you been quiet for almost the entire journey?"

"Look, I'm fine, okay?" he turned his head back to look ahead of him and sighed. "Just stop it please. I promise you guys, I'm okay,"

Tanya just shook her head but said nothing more and sat back in her seat, looking ahead of the warthog. Marcus also kept his eyes ahead of him, not caring, but probably knowing that they were whispering about what had just happened right now behind his back. It annoyed him, but right now he could let his anger get to him.

He sighed. He hated to admit it, but they were right. He _was_ worried about something. It was Anya again, but he just did not want to worry about her. He knew she was safe, so why should he worry about her. Then it struck him. It was that thought again. He just could not get it out of his mind.

"Look!" Stinger exclaimed all of a sudden, pointing ahead.

The others looked to where he was pointing and their eyes went wide.

There, about a mile from them was a large ship. It was huge with a dome top that held probably a barracks a hospital and other military structures. A bridge was visible about half-way down the front of the ship. Across the side of the ship, in large white letters, was the word **Michigan**. Hope filled them.

"We made it!" Stinger half-exclaimed, relief in his voice.

The others all sat up to get a look at the ship, smiling in relief. Even Marcus felt relief surge through his body. They had made it. They were finally going to get off the planet, and he was finally going to be reunited with Anya.

"Oh God!" he heard Tanya in a shocked voice

"What is it?" Alima asked her as they all turned to look at Tanya and she replied by pointing ahead back towards the _Michigan_, though not directly at it. More like in front of it.

They all looked and saw why she was shocked. In front of the ship was a small collection of buildings, most of them against a small river that had somehow survived the glassing, probably because the Covenant ships had been fended off from here. Most of the buildings, however, were smoking and there were many remains of Covenant land and air vehicles scattered about along with several pelican remains. It was obvious a battle had taken place here, but did that mean the area was in control of the Covenant? Was the UNSC that had been here all dead, or were they fighting the Covenant on board the ship?

"I hope we're not too late," Stinger said worryingly.

"Same here," Marcus replied.

He drove down a small hill and onto a dirt path that led towards the buildings. As they approached, they noticed some figures moving about amongst the buildings. Unease began to fill them like water filling up a tank. They did not know if these figures were Humans or Covenant, and if they were Covenant then they would be in a very tight situation for the only thing they had to defend themselves with was their fists and the warthog itself. They did not have any guns with them as they had been destroyed earlier on when they had been defending the _Axiom_.

"D'you think it's a good idea we go down there?" Alice asked Marcus.

"It's worth a try," he replied. "Besides, it could be our only way to get off Reach,"

"What if we get attacked?" Stinger inquired. "We don't have anything to defend ourselves with,"

"Then we'll be dead, but at least were trying to save ourselves," he replied.

As the warthog got closer to the buildings, the figures around the buildings suddenly started rushing about as if alerted to their presence, which they probably were. Marcus took a quiet deep breath as fear began to engulf him. He was not sure if these figures were Covenant or not, but then again they had not fired on them as they were approaching so that gave him a little bit of hope that they were safe.

Then, when they were about two hundred feet from the edge of the buildings, one of the figures stopped outside the building and began waving It's arm at them.

"Hey guys!" the figure called. "Over here!"

Marcus looked at the others. "We're safe," he said, smiling a little and he drove over to the figure, slowing the vehicle down as it approached the building before finally coming to a halt a few metres from it. The figure was a tall marine with blonde hair and green eyes. His uniform was dusty and torn at the sleeves as if it had been ripped off. In his hands was a battle rifle.

"Glad you guys could make it," he said to them as they climbed out of the warthog.

"What happened here?" Marcus asked.

"The Covenant sent in a strike force earlier on but we repelled 'em," the marine replied. "Well, for the moment, we have, but they'll be back. And we're in a tight situation at the moment,"

"Why, what's going on?" Marcus asked the marine.

"There's a lot of wounded and workers here from the surrounding bases," the marine explained. "And the Covenant are headed this way with some of their ships to stop the _Michigan _from escaping, and they might be headed here with a load of ground forces as well,"

"Oh, great," Stinger groaned.

Just then, the soldier's radio on his belt around his waist crackled to life.

"_All units, this is captain Parker. Report back to the _Michigan_ immediately," _a voice said from the radio.

The marine picked up the radio and held it up to his lips.

"Captain Walker, this is Peterson," the marine said. "I'm on the edge of the building area outside the ship. There's a group of taskforce soldiers here,"

At these words, a few gasps and mumbled words came out of the radio. After a moment, captain Walker's voice came back through the radio again.

"_Peterson, bring 'em over to the command centre outside the ship," _

The marine nodded as if in response to the order. "Yes, sir," he said. "Alright, follow me," he said to the squad and he turned and ran down past the building in the direction of the river. The squad followed him.

As they passed the buildings, most of which were empty, some partially destroyed, they saw a few more dead bodies lying inside them, both UNSC, some being workers, and Covenant. The battle that had taken place here earlier on must have been fierce. They passed a destroyed pelican as they crossed a small dirt road, that ran through the building area, and saw a few marines searching the wreck for any ammunition and any survivors. The marines went wide-eyed when they saw them, obviously shocked, and probably relieved that they were here. It gave them a sense of hope that maybe they might all finally make it out of here. The squad ran into the next area of buildings and rounded the corner of a small cube shaped building that had been a house.

They screeched to a halt. Finally, about twenty feet ahead of them down the pathway between the buildings, was a large cube shaped building, about three times the size of the normal cube shaped building, with a dark green colour on the outside of it. A large doorway was on the outside wall of the building facing the squad A few marines were sitting down on the ground outside with medics kneeling down next to them, obviously showing that the marines sitting on the ground next to the building were wounded. Through the doorway, the squad could see more marines and workers inside the building.

"That the command centre?" Tanya asked.

"Yep," Peterson replied. "C'mon, captain'll be waiting,"

He ran down the pathway; the squad followed. As they approached the building, they saw a few marines move up to the edge of the building, binoculars in their hands. They were scouting out the perimeter and keeping watch over the skies for any approaching Covenant ships that were, no doubt, heading toward the base to stop the _Michigan _from escaping.

The squad ran inside the building and were stunned to see a larger group of workers and marines in the building than they had anticipated. The main room was about fifty foot long and about thirty feet wide, but it looked smaller compared to the amount of people here. Along the sides of the walls were overturned desks and a pile of chairs and cabinets was in the corner of the room. A few marines with guns were standing near the main door and a small side door on the left wall at the other end of the room. Along the walls were many more wounded marines, some with bandages on them, others with machines attached to them to monitor blood loss and heartbeat. Medics were working on them, as were a few workers with first aid experience and a group of marines nearby were receiving and sending transmissions from their radios. On the far left wall, next to the smaller side entrance door, was a large portable computer screen that was attached to the wall. it was amazing to see that just a few days ago, this would have been a normal working place for marines and UNSC workers and officers. Now, it was being used a medical post.

"Alright, wait here," Peterson told them. "I'll go and contact the captain," and he ran over to the group of marines with the radios.

The squad received a few wide-eyed and relieved looks from those around them. It was obvious everyone was glad they were here. They might have a chance now, but then again, there were only six taskforce soldiers and even though they had put a good fight against the Covenant in the past few days, they were only just small skirmishes. This was different. This was a full scale invasion where thousands more troops would be facing them, raring to kill them and everyone on this planet, where many more Covenant ships would be coming to completely vaporize them.

This time, they were on the defensive rather than on the offense like they had been before over the last few days, and this time, they might end up like the Covenant they had faced then.

This time, they might be the ones that get killed.

"Marcus!" a female voice called.

Marcus shot round and his eyes went wide with disbelief. A young woman was running towards him. She had black hair, green eyes and looked to be about twenty one. She was dressed in a nurses uniform. Very quickly, he found himself running toward her.

"Debbie!" he exclaimed, embracing her tightly as she reached him. She embraced him as well.

"I'm so glad you're here!" she said. "I'm glad you're safe,"

"So am I," he replied as he released her. "What are you doing here?" he asked her.

"We had to leave Takira base to the north of here when the Covenant attacked," she explained. "We barely made it out of there alive. I've been here treating the wounded ever since whilst the pelicans have been evacuating them to the ship,"

"Debbie!" another voice behind them exclaimed and Debbie turned and they looked behind her to see a marine walking up to them. He had blonde hair, blue eyes and was heavily built. It was Hans. Marcus had heard about him from Debbie. Truth was, he was kind of her close friend because she had once had feelings for Marcus, which he knew about but he was in love with Anya. Debbie was a bit upset when she learned about this, but Hans had comforted her, and Marcus probably knew he loved her. After a while, Debbie had grown used to the fact that her friend was in love with someone else and was happy for them. He and Debbie were still friends, but this was the first time he had met Hans in person.

"Hey, Hans," she said as he reached them. "This is Marcus,"

"Hey man," Hans greeted as he held up his hand.

"Hi," Marcus replied as he shook it. "So anything happened whilst you've been here?" he asked as he and Hans released their hands.

"Not much, just been trying to get the wounded out," Hans replied. "I just hope we'll be able to go soon,"

Marcus nodded in agreement. "Same here," he replied.

"Hey, Marcus," Stinger called from the other end of the room and he looked over his shoulder to see the rest of the squad waiting for him. Peterson was standing underneath the portable computer screen, working on the circuits and wires underneath it to try and activate it. The screen flickered a few times. "C'mon, we've got the captain," Stinger said.

Marcus nodded and looked back at Hans and Debbie. "Sorry, I got to go," he said.

They nodded. "Take care," Debbie said.

"Yeah, look after yourself, man," Hans said.

"Thanks," Marcus replied and he rushed over to the squad at the other end of the room. Just as he reached them, the screen turned on and a man in a grey UNSC captain's uniform with short grey hair, blue eyes and was a medium height but had the look that he was a tough leader. It was captain Parker. He was standing in what looked like the bridge of the _Michigan _as they could see workers on control panels scattered around the room behind him.

_"Glad you guys could make it here," _he said. _"Thought we would be goners if the Covenant came here. Where abouts have you guys come from?"_

"_Axiom_ base, sir," Marcus replied. "We managed to defend the ship from a battle cruiser before it got to it. But then we got knocked out and when we woke up, the _Axiom _was gone so we decided to try and find another base with a ship,"

_"Well we can both thank God you all arrived here," _he said. _"As you might have been told, we're in a hit of a tight situation at the moment. The Covenant attacked us earlier on but got repelled but we just received word that they're heading this way again, with a much larger force and we've got a lot of wounded from here and the surrounding bases to evacuate,"_

"But I swear there was a bridge that led from this side of the river to the bridge,"

"There was, but it got blown up in the last attack," Peterson cut in before captain Parker could reply.

"_And with only a few pelicans and a few able-bodied men able to fight, we won't be able to hold 'em off forever," _Parker added.

Marcus nodded, taking in what he had been told. So this was a big mission they had to do now. The lives of hundreds, no thousands of their comrades were at risk and with a shortage of defenders left and too many wounded, they were pretty much the only ones left to stop the Covenant, but at least they could hold them off, hopefully long enough to get all of the wounded out of here.

From outside, the roars of a pelican engines filled the air inside the building. That was another batch of wounded going to safety, but there were many more here and probably outside as well to get to the _Michigan_.

"_Sir!"_ a voice called from somewhere on the portable screen behind the captain and a worker stood up from one of the control panels along the wall. _"Covenant forces approaching! Phantoms, wraiths, ghosts and a ton of infantry!"_

"Oh no!" captain Parker groaned as he turned back to the squad. _"Alright, you have your orders. Defend that base long enough to get the wounded out,"_

They all nodded. "Yes, sir," the all said in unison.

Parker nodded and gave them a salute, probably the last they would have. _"Good luck," _he said and the computer screen turned off.

Marcus turned to Peterson as he stepped out from underneath the computer screen. "Peterson, we need weapons," he told him.

"Over there," he replied, pointing over to a few weapons racks along the back wall a few feet from the side entrance doorway.

The squad ran over to the weapons racks. There were only a few battle rifles, MA5B and MA5C assault rifles with a few pistols. A few clips of ammunition were placed in the racks next to each of the weapons. They all took a weapon and the few clips of ammo next to it. It was not much ammunition, but it was good enough to last a while, providing they used it wisely.

"Alright, where do we go?" Marcus asked as he looked around to try and find a place where they could be most useful.

"Over here," a marine standing by the side entrance door called, drawing their attention. "C'mon, over here,"

They ran over to the marine and he led them outside back into the desert-like landscape. A few metres from them was a large clearing where a large group of wounded marines, about forty with abut fifteen others able bodied marines, a mixture of marines and medics, were sitting down or lying down on the ground in the clearing. A pelican was parked nearby with it's landing gear unfolded and touched down on the desert-like ground, the back of it facing the squad and they saw many wounded being loaded into it by the medics and able bodied marines. Another pelican had taken off as they had come outside. This was just a small portion of the wounded out here. There were many more inside and on the other side of the building and plus there were other able bodied marines about that had to be evacuated.

"Up here," the marine pointed to a steel ladder attached to the side of the building that led up to the ceiling. Marcus ran over to it and began climbing up the ladder. Behind him was Alice and behind her, just getting onto the ladder, was Tanya with Alima, Stinger and Tyler waiting at the bottom.

When Marcus reached the roof of the building, he saw about five other marines up here with him. Two were crouched down by the side of the roof were holding binoculars in their hands and were looking through them into the distance. The other three marines were wielding sniper rifles and had them aimed down at the buildings below as if expecting the Covenant to charge out of them.

Marcus climbed onto the roof and ran over to the marines with the binoculars.

"See anything?" he asked as he reached them.

"Yeah, look," the marine next to him replied, passing him his binoculars.

Marcus took them and looked through the binoculars into the distance. He could see nothing but glassed earth, all of it having once been grassland but was now like a barren desert-like wasteland. Then, from what seemed to be every direction in front of him, large shapes began to head towards the base from the ground. Around them were large numbers of figures. Movement in the air made him look up a little and he saw many large shapes heading towards the base. If he was right, the craft he could see were phantoms, the original L shaped drop ships, banshees and a few seraph fighters and, he gulped at this, at least three, no _four_CCs battle cruisers. Marcus swore loudly as he lowered the binoculars from his eyes. This was not good. They were a few miles away yet, but with their advanced technology they would be here in about twenty minutes, thirty or maybe, and hopefully, even forty, if they were lucky.

"You see 'em?" the marine, who had given him the binoculars, next to him asked.

"You bet," Marcus replied, filled with shock.

"What is it?" Tanya asked as he and others reached him and he replied by handing her the binoculars. She took them and looked through them into the distance, quickly becoming overwhelmed with shock at what she was seeing as well.

"What are your orders?" the marine asked Marcus whilst behind them, the rest of the squad began looking through the binoculars at the approaching Covenant.

"We have to stay here and fight," he told the marine. "Try and hold 'em off to allow the wounded to get out of here,"

"We can sure as Hell thank God you guys are here, man," one of the snipers, who was lying down on the floor nearby, piped up. "Otherwise, we'd all be dead,"

"Here they come!" the voice of a marine shouted from a nearby rooftop of a small cube shaped building about fifteen feet ahead of the command centre.

Those on the rooftop of the building looked up to see a wave of six phantoms approaching the base. They were descending as they approached, but their three main cannons were aiming all around and they were the real deadly weapon of the ships.

"Everyone get down!" the marine next to Marcus ordered.

They obeyed and dived to the floor, keeping their weapons close in case the phantoms open fired on them. Marcus watched as the phantoms came closer and closer to the building. Tension rose within him, and it only increased as the six ships suddenly stopped a few metres outside the edge of the base and began to descend toward the ground. One of the snipers lifted himself up from the floor slightly to get a better view of the ships.

"Whoa!" he half-whispered, though his voice was loud enough for the others on the roof to hear him. "They're dropping loads of troops onto the ground," he said.

"How many?" the marine, also a sniper, lying down next to him asked.

The marine sitting up rose up a little more to answer his friend's question. "Uummm," he said. "A few Elites, can't tell if they're minors or majors,… A load of Grunts. Some Jackals, can't tell how many but quite a lot. And-wait," he stopped suddenly and squinted his eyes a little as he tried to get a better look at something on the side of the craft.

"What is it?" Stinger asked.

"It's…It's-"

Suddenly, the marine flew backwards onto the floor, a tiny smoking hole in his forehead between his eyes, which were wide open but showed of sign of life at all in them.

"MIKE!" the marine next him yelled as he pulled the body of his friend over to him to see if he could try and revive him, but it was hopeless. He was gone.

"AAAAHHH!"

Suddenly, the marine fell to the floor next to the body of his comrade, blood pouring out of a wound on his arm. Marcus looked up at him to see the tail line of a purple laser disappear into thin air.

"It's a sniper!" he warned as the marine, who had been the other of the two holding the binoculars, next to the injured marine grabbed his friend and pulled him away from the body of his friend and pushed his hand down on the wound on his arm to try and stem the flow of blood. "Stay down!" he added, hissing slightly.

"What do we do?" Tanya asked him in a slightly panicked tone.

Marcus looked back over at the body of the marine and saw his weapon lying on the floor next to him. An idea popped into his head and, placing his battle rifle on the floor, he crawled over to it, keeping his head low so as not to present himself as a target for the sniper. When he reached the body, he grabbed the weapon and looked through the scope of the sniper rifle at the phantoms. He could see the side of one of the craft completely open. There was something there, but he could not get a clear view of it. It was the sniper, then he would have to try and draw It's fire…but how? That was easier said than do-

Wait a minute. He looked at the body of the marine next to him and, carefully, took off his helmet and, looking through the scope and placing a finger on the trigger of the weapon, threw it up into the air. Just as he expected, something moved out of the edge of the hole and fired another purple laser at the helmet. Quickly seizing the opportunity, Marcus fired a shot from the sniper field at the figure. The figure, suddenly, jolted backwards and held a rigid-like position for a moment before falling from the edge of the craft to the ground, dead. Seeing the figure more clearly, Marcus quickly identified it as a Jackal, a perfect sniper of the Covenant army, no doubt for It's amazing sight and hearing. The phantoms hovered back up into the air, turned and flew back in the direction of the approaching army.

"Alright, It's all clear," Marcus said to the others, who sat up from the floor.

"Nice work, man," the marine treating his injured friend replied. "Alright, let's get him out of here,"

"I'll help," Alice offered, moving over to the two and taking the marine under the shoulders whilst the other grabbed his legs. The marine thanked her and they stood up and moved over to the ladder and climbed down, holding the marine in their hands, and disappeared from sight.

"Oh shit!" a voice from below shouted and those on the roof of the building looked down to the end of the pathway, near the turning that led from the dirt road to this part of the building area, to see three marine run around the corner and down the pathway towards the building. A flew blasts followed them, followed by the deep shouts of the Elites. "Covenant are right behind us!" one of the marines warned as they reached the building.

The rest of the squad and the remaining marines lined up along the edge of the building and aimed their weapons down at the turning. Not even a second passed before a tiny lumbering figure appeared from behind the turning brandishing a needler. It was a Grunt. Reacting quickly, Marcus fired a shot from his sniper rifle at the Grunt, hitting it in the head and causing to yell loudly as it flipped backwards onto the ground, dead. He saw the feet of another Grunt screech to a halt at the very edge of the turning and quickly move back behind it. A high pitched squeak emitted from behind the turning, followed by a deep voice shouting something and another Grunt was pushed out from behind the turning into the pathway. A marine on the ground fired a burst of ammo from his weapon at the Grunt, killing it.

"Hey!" Tyler shouted down to the marine and he looked up at him. "Get the wounded inside! We'll cover you!"

"Yes, sir!" the marine replied. "Alright, you heard him, get 'em inside, quick-AAAHHH!"

Suddenly, the marine fell forwards onto the floor as a light blue blast hit him the back of the head, killing him instantly. Those on the ground quickly dived for cover. Reacting quickly, Tanya and Alima fired down the pathway at the Elite, who had stuck It's head out from behind the wall of the turning to help it find a suitable target. The bullets hit the creature in the head and it roared loudly as it fell backwards onto the ground, dead.

"Nice one," one of the marines lying down next to them commented.

VROM! BOOM! An explosion erupted on the top of a building about thirty feet away to the right of the building, destroying it completely. The squad and marine looked up and saw a banshee fly overhead towards the ship. They watched it fly over the river before a missile flew out from the _Michigan_and struck the banshee, turning it into a fireball as it exploded and the remains fell into the river, splashing loudly and disturbing the calmness of the surface of the water with huge ripples for a few moments before they finally settled and became still once more.

"They'll be more of 'em," Stinger said as he turned his head back to look back down the pathway.

"Watch it, Jackals climbing over the rooftops!" Alima warned, pointing over to their left at a few large rectangular buildings that were attached to each other. The squad and the marines with them looked and saw about six vulture-like creatures carrying large green shields in one hand and plasma pistols in the other running toward them.

"Fire on them!" Marcus ordered, grabbing his battle rifle and setting the sniper down on the floor.

A barrage of gunfire exploded in the air like thunder as the squad fired at the approaching Jackals. Two of them were hit and screeched loudly as they fell to the floor of the roof of the building they were on, one falling over the edge to the ground. The other four, however, stopped and raised their shields in front of themselves. The bullets hit them but did not break through, though it did stop them from returning fire.

"Somebody throw a grenade!" Marcus ordered.

The marine lying next to Marcus reached down to his belt and took out a fragmentation grenade. He pulled the pin and, rising up onto his knees, drew his arm back and, with an almighty grunt, threw the grenade with all his strength towards the Jackals. One of them screeched loudly and pointed up from under his shield at the approaching danger. His comrades did not hear him and failed to notice the grenade until the device landed between them.

BOOM! The grenade exploded and a chorus of screeches filled the air as the Jackals were thrown over the sides of the roof to the ground below. That was another danger out of the way, but more were coming.

Behind them, the noise of pelican engines filled their ears and they all looked to see another of the craft rise into the air, the landing gear unfolding either side of the resting area, which they could see was filled with wounded and a few able bodied marines. The craft flew forward towards to the _Michigan _and hopefully towards safety.

"I hope they'll come back for us," Stinger said as he watched the pelican go.

"Same here," Tanya replied. "Speaking of which; where's Alice?" she asked.

"WATCH OUT!" the marine on top of the command centre shouted as something light blue, almost white, came shooting down towards his building.

BOOM! An explosion erupted on the front of it, throwing large chunks of rubble in all directions like pieces of shrapnel from an exploding shell. The front half of the building collapsed, along with almost the entire building that was in front of it. The squad had seen what had caused that. It was a mortar blast, and if it was a mortar blast then there was only one place it could come from.

CRASH! A large dust cloud was thrown up into the air at the end of the pathway as the building opposite the turning caved in. For a moment, the squad could not see anything.

Then, a large shape hovered out of the dust cloud, which made it fade away as if it was fleeing from it. The shape was in fact a large seat-like shaped vehicle with a dark purple/maroon-like coloured armour, a large hole at the top of the vehicle and two small triangular-like pieces of armour sticking out of the sides of the front of the craft, which held the engines. The craft was hovering a few inches from the ground. Marcus swore under his breath and Tanya whispered: "Holy God!"

It was a wraith.

"Get off the building now!" Marcus half-shouted.

They did not need telling twice, most of the squad were already on their feet and running back towards the ladder before Marcus had even finished speaking. He rushed over to join them and Stinger had slid all the way down the ladder to the ground and Tanya and Alima were climbing down quickly after him. One of the marines climbed on next. Tanya stepped off the ladder.

BOOM! Suddenly, the entire roof of the building seemed to lift up from beneath them as another mortar blast hit the building. Part of it caved in but most of the side of the roof was thrown in all directions. Marcus, Tyler and the other two marines were blown to the floor by the explosion. One of the marines, unfortunately, was too close to the edge of the roof when the explosion erupted and the force of it threw him over the side to the ground. However, luck seemed to have won him back from a certain death as Stinger caught the marine just a few feet before he was to hit the ground.

"Whoa!" the marine gasped, obviously shaken, as Stinger set him down. "Thanks, man. I owe you my life,"

"No need," Stinger replied.

"Hurry!" Alima shouted up to the others.

Tyler began climbing down the ladder with another of the marines following him. Marcus looked down at the wraith as it began to move forward. No doubt the pilot had seen them move out of the way so it looked like he wanted to fire again, but he would be too close to hit the roof again. Unless…

Oh no! He was moving closer to the building to fire on those inside!

"Hurry, we gotta stop that wraith!" Marcus warned.

"Why, what's going on?" Tyler asked.

"It's moving closer to the building to fire on those inside," Marcus replied as he began to climb down the ladder, almost sliding down.

Stinger and Tanya ran back into the building. When the third marine, who had been the last to get off the roof before Marcus, got of the ladder, Marcus slid the rest of the way down to the ground and ran inside. The rest of the squad followed him. They were greeted by a scene of chaos as Stinger and Tanya tried to help the marines and medics move the wounded out of the way of the wraith. The others rushed over to help.

"Hans, help me!" Marcus heard Debbie call and he looked over to the doorway to see her and Hans lift up a wounded marine, who had a bandage around his face and chest, both of which were badly blood stained.

Then, movement outside caught Marcus' eye and he looked to see the wraith come to a halt about ten feet from the entrance to the command centre, close enough to score a direct hit in the room.

"EVERYONE GET DOWN!" Marcus yelled as loud as he could.

Those that heard him quickly saw the danger and dived to the floor, some pulling their friends down with them, others diving on top of comrades to try and shield them with their own bodies. Marcus ran over to Hans and Debbie, who were one of the few remaining that had not realised the danger and pulled them to the floor and dived down next to them.

"Marcus, what's go-"

BOOM! Another explosion, though this one was much closer and louder, lit up the room. Dust and rubble were thrown everywhere. Marcus gingerly lifted his head up and saw a large hole in the wall to the left of the entrance to the command centre. A layer of dust was over pretty much everyone and everything in the room. Several marines and medics were lying dead across the floor, unfortunate enough to have been killed in the explosion. However, he was relieved to see most raise their heads and/or stand up. He turned back to Debbie and Hans, who lay next to him.

"You guys alright?" he asked them.

"Yeah," the replied in unison.

"Watch out, It's gonna fire again!" a nearby marine warned.

Marcus looked out through the entrance and saw the wraith still hovering there, but two large thin metallic tentacle-like objects sticking out of the back of the craft just behind the hole were raised over it. The wraith was preparing to fire again.

"Get away from the entrance, quick!" Alima, who was on the other side of the entrance inside the building, shouted. Instantly, the other marines and medics began dragging their comrades towards the corners of the room nearest the wraith, hoping that it this would protect them from it. Marcus looked back at the wraith and saw the metallic fin-like objects rise a little higher.

_Oh no! _He thought in terror.

He rushed over to Debbie and Hans and pushed them over into the bottom right corner of the room.

"Stay here!" he told them, but just as he got up…

BOOM! Another explosion threw those inside the building to the floor. However, this one was different. As Marcus lifted his head up, he saw that there were no other holes in the walls or parts of the ceiling or floor missing, or even any more dead marines or medics or workers. What had just caused that explosion?

"Whoa! The wraith's gone!" a worker exclaimed from the back wall as he stood up, pointing out through the entrance.

Marcus joined a few others, including Tanya and Tyler and Peterson, as they ran over to the entrance and looked out. There, the wraith was now sitting on the ground; only a large section of the side of the enormous vehicle had been blown off and was now lying on the ground next to it. A small light blue/purple fire was burning out of the top of the craft and both of the triangular side sections on the front of the craft were lying on the ground.

"What the Hell…?" Tyler began, stepping outside.

"Thought you guys could use some help," a voice said from nearby and they looked up at a nearby rooftop to see Alice standing there with a rocket launcher on her shoulder. Marcus smiled.

"Thanks, Alice," he replied and turned back to the others. "Alright, let's get these wounded out of here," and they nodded and ran back inside to help with taking the wounded out to the pelicans.

As Marcus ran back inside, he saw Debbie and Hans stand up from the floor in the corner of the room.

"You two okay?" he asked them as he ran over to them.

"Yeah," Hans replied. "What destroyed the wraith?" he asked.

"Alice, one of the members of the squad, did," Marcus replied.

He stepped back a little to allow the two to pass him and they walked over to the entrance of the building and looked out at the wraith.

"That should block the way down here, hopefully," Debbie said as she looked at the burning remains of the wraith.

Marcus and Hans nodded in agreement. It would not stop the Covenant advance entirely, but at least the quick way down here for their infantry was no longer usable to them, at least he hoped it was.

"Alright, c'mon, let's get the wounded out! Move! Move!" Peterson, who was standing by the side entrance doorway, ordered.

"C'mon, let's go help," Hans said and he and Debbie ran over and picked up and injured marine and carried him over towards the doorway. Marcus, however, stayed where he was, looking at the destroyed wraith and the pathway as if in a trance.

"What if they find a way around it?" he muttered to himself.

That was what feared him the most at the moment. What if the Covenant did manage to find an alternative path to get to the pelicans? If they did, then it was going to be a slaughter for the wounded and the medics and workers and everyone behind the building. The only thing he could hope on was himself, his squad and those that were still able to fight.

"Marcus!" Stinger called from the side entrance doorway, snapping him back into reality and he turned to look at him to see him carrying a wounded worker who was bleeding badly from the side even though a bandage was wrapped around it and he had been given a serum. "C'mon, we have to go!"

Marcus nodded and rushed over, following Stinger outside and back into the clearing where the others were gathered. There were now only about thirty five wounded left and there were two pelicans parked nearby collecting those that still remained. Debbie and Hans were on board one of the pelicans, helping to put the wounded inside the ship.

"Is that all of them?" a nearby sergeant asked Marcus.

"Yeah," Marcus replied. "That's the last of 'em,"

"Good. Okay, start helping us load up the wounded and then board one of the pelicans,"

"What about Alice?" Alima, who had placed a wounded man down next to a medic so he could treat him nearby, asked in quite an angry tone. She walked over to them.

"Who?" the sergeant inquired.

"Alice," Alima told him again. "She over-"

BOOM! An explosion almost threw them to the ground and they looked over towards the buildings in front of the command centre to see a woman dressed in a green bodysuit appear out of a small side alleyway between one of the buildings and fire a burst of ammo from her battle rifle down the alleyway. A marine followed her, but as he came out a blast struck him in the back of the head and he fell to the ground, dead.

"Alice!" Alima exclaimed.

Alice looked over at them and waved before firing another burst of ammo down the alleyway, which emitted a high pitched yell, indicating that a Grunt had been killed. Alice then turned and ran towards them.

Suddenly, a tall bulky figure ran out of the alleyway she had just come out of, kicking aside the body of the dead marine. It was a major Elite. Before the others could even warn Alice, the creature fired several blasts from It's plasma rifle at her. They hit her bodysuit, making the shield light up. Alice stared wide-eyed with panic at her wrist as the holographic meter appeared above it, showing the level in the bar lower to yellow, then to red and then disappear altogether. Her suit's protective shield was disabled.

Alice screamed as she was hit in the leg and fell to the ground. The Elite fired at the squad, causing them to dive to the ground to avoid the deadly blasts. The Elite then ran towards Alice, hoping to kill her quickly before her suit's shield reactivated. Alima looked up and saw the Elite running towards her friend.

"NO!" she yelled. "Leave her alone!"

She shot up from the ground, raised her battle rifle and fired a burst of ammo at the Elite. The bullets easily broke through the Elites' armour and It's shield and embedded themselves in It's chest and stomach. The Elite roared and fell forward onto the ground, dead.

"Alice!" Alima exclaimed as she ran over to her friend. Marcus and Stinger joined her. Tanya and Tyler were also running over as well.

"Is she alright?" Marcus asked as he and Stinger reached Alice with Alima, who knelt down beside her.

"Argh!" Alice grunted. "I…I'm fine!" she gasped. "It's just my leg,"

"You've got strong luck," Stinger replied.

Alice gave a tiny laugh. "I wish," she said.

"Is she okay?" Tanya asked as he and Tanya reached them.

"Yeah, she's fine," Marcus told them. "C'mon, let's get her over to the pelican,"

"_No need, we were just about to leave. We'll come over to you," _a voice said from their ear radios and they all looked up to see a pelican hover towards them, descending toward them. When it was about five feet above the ground, and about ten feet from the group, the pelican turned around the so the resting area was facing the squad, revealing the about twelve odd wounded and four able bodied marines, including two medics, in the pelican. Two marines of the medics stood at the end of the resting area and, gently, the squad picked up Alice and handed her to the marines.

"Look after her," Alima said to the marines worryingly.

One of them nodded. "Don't worry, we will," he replied. He turned his head so he was facing the cog pot door. "Alright, pilot, take off,"

_"Roger that," _the pilot's voice replied, which the squad heard over their ear radio.

Slowly, the pelican began to hover up into the air. The squad watched the craft go and Alima looked worryingly up at it as the view into the resting area ended as the craft rose higher.

"You alright?" Tyler asked her, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm worried," she replied. "She was a colleague of mine at TechCorps,"

"Don't worry," Tyler told her gently, trying to calm and comfort her. "She'll be alright,"

"Yeah, don't worry, Alima," Marcus, who had overheard the two talking, piped up. "Alice'll be fine. She's in the best possible hands, or will be when she gets to the ship,"

She smiled. "Thanks guys," she said.

"BANSHEES INCOMING!" a nearby marine yelled all of a sudden, pointing into the air in the direction of the command centre.

The squad shot round and saw a group of three banshees heading towards the command centre. At once, fear gripped them. Even though the wounded on the ground were greatly exposed, the banshees would usually go for anything in the air, and pelicans were an easy target.

"Oh no!" Stinger said in horror. The others felt the same way. Alima shot round and looked up at the pelican, but just she did…

BOOM! A light green explosion lit up the sky, throwing the squad and most of the nearby group of wounded and marines to the ground. Those that looked up first saw the pelican spinning around in mid-air, fire eating away at the left wing.

"NO!" Alima screamed as she shot up from the ground, looking up with horror filled eyes at the burning craft. The others, who also got up from the ground, felt the same way. One of their team members was on board the pelican, and they could do nothing to help her and those on board.

_"This is Delta 391, We've taken a hit to our left wing!" _The pelican tipped from side to side several times before it began to spin around in mid-air. Debris fell from the craft and the squad ran back towards the command centre to avoid being hit by the debris.

Marcus looked up at the pelican in horror. This was not happening! It could not be! No, this was not happening! Next to him, Alima looked as though she was going to burst into tears. Her best friend was on board the pelican ad she could nothing to save her, let alone help her!

Then, as if their worst fears were coming true, the pelican spun round in mid-air towards the river as the pilot struggled violently to gain control of the craft. Then, it fell and smashed into a building near the river, exploding into a fireball.

"NOOOO!" Alima screamed as she began to run towards the craft but Tyler grabbed her and pulled her into the building. Tanya and Stinger went with them, but Marcus stopped at the doorway, staring in disbelief at the burning wreckage of the pelican. Three moving shapes overhead made him look up. The banshees. He glared at them as if he was hoping his very hatred for the Covenant piloting the banshees would suddenly bring down the craft and kill the Covenant piloting the banshees. He watched them as they flew off towards the _Michigan_, no doubt that they would be shot down.

_I hope so _Marcus mentally said to himself.

After a moment, Marcus walked into the command centre. He was greeted by a wave of grief so strong it made him breathless. Alima was sitting against the back wall, sobbing and crying in her hands. Tyler was kneeling down to her, trying to comfort her. Tanya and Stinger stood away from them, wiping their eyes clean of a few tears that were coming out of them. They too had been affected by what had just happened.

"Sssshh! Alima!" Tyler soothed her, but he had to admit it was heart breaking for him as well. "Alima, I'm sorry! Sssshh! It's alright!"

Marcus sighed and wiped his eye, trying not breakdown like Alima had done. It was really horrible to see something like this happen. He felt like his entire body was breaking down. He could not believe that this was happening. Alice was dead. Even though he was used to losing men he had worked with before when he had been a marine, this time Alice was a personal friend of his, and now she was gone.

"Kill them!"

The squad looked up at the entrance and saw an Elite run into the room. Anger gripped them instantly and they fired a barrage of bullets at the creature, hitting it in the chest and head, killing the Elite. A squad of four Grunts ran in next but they too were mown down.

"Bastards!" Stinger yelled in anger.

A Jackal ran in next, firing away madly in all directions, but Alima put killed it by firing a burst of ammo at the creature, hitting it in the chest.

"That's for my friend!" she shouted at the body of the Jackal.

Another Jackal skidded to a halt outside the building and ran back toward the pathway. Immediately, like a lion running after a fleeing antelope, Alima got up and ran towards the entrance to the building, anger blazing in her eyes like an inferno. The others made no attempt to stop her. In fact, they joined her, determined to make every Covenant soldier out there pay for what they had done to them.

When the anger fuelled squad reached the entrance to the building, they fired at the Jackal they had seen as it climbed over the remains of the wraith Alice had destroyed, hitting it in the back. The creature screeched loudly as it fell off the side of the vehicle to the ground, dead. Another Jackal ran out from the building to the left of the entrance towards the wraith, hell bent on fleeing towards It's comrades approaching the base. The squad fired on the Jackal before it got half-way to the wraith, killing it.

"We should go after them!" Tyler said, his voice serious. "Kill the rest of 'em before they escape to their friends!"

"We can't risk it, Tyler," Marcus told him, his voice also serious but it wounded more in frustration rather than sternly. "We'll have to let them go. But we'll get 'em next time,"

The look on Tyler's face darkened, as did that on Alima, but neither said nothing, but it was obvious they _really_wanted to get back at the Covenant for what they had done, but for now they would have to leave that out of their minds.

Marcus turned and walked back into the building, the others followed him and they walked over to the weapon racks to reload and gather any ammunition. Outside, they heard the engines of another pelican take off and fly away. That was another group of wounded away, but now there was only one pelican and the evacuation time would take longer. Hope was the only thing they all had to help them now, and time.

Then, the portable computer screen turned on, but the squad, who turned to look at it, was greeted by a static scene. Marcus walked over to the computer and looked underneath it, seeing a small opening with several wires inside it, one of them hanging loosely next to a small button inside the opening. Peterson had been working on it earlier and had left it open. Well, that at least saved them having to try and break it open.

"Alima," Marcus called. "Come and help me,"

She rushed over and helped Marcus re-connect the wire and he pressed the button. The screen flickered several times before finally coming back into view of the bridge. Captain Parker was standing there. Behind him, the workers were rushing about, trying to pass orders or keep the weapons of the ship activated and tracing the sky for any nearby threats. Marcus and Alima came out from under the computer screen and re-joined the squad. Captain Parker was relieved to see them.

"_Oh God, I'm glad you guys are okay!" _he said in a relieved tone. _"We heard a pelican got shot down over your side of the river and I thought one of you was on board. I'm glad you're all there,"_

"Alice isn't," Tanya replied lowly. "She was on the pelican when it got hit,"

"_Oh," _Parker said, his voice also a little low. _"I'm sorry,"_

None of them replied and silence filled the room for a moment before Marcus broke the ice.

"So what's do we do now?" he asked the captain. "There's only one pelican running to carry the wounded out of here,"

_"The Covenant are getting closer with one of their battle cruisers," _Parker replied. _"We've managed to reactivate a large cannon inside the ship in the dome, but the problem is we need a spotter team to target the ship, and what's worse, they have to be on your side of the river to do so,"_

"And let me guess, we have to protect them," Marcus cut in. Parker nodded.

"_This has to work, or the ship and everyone on it will be dead," _he told them. _"The team'll be over in a few moments. We're depending on you guys. Good luck,"_

He gave them another salute. The screen turned off again, leaving a blank screen in front of them. A gun cocked and the squad looked to see Tyler over by the weapons racks, quickly loading ammunition into his battle rifle.

"We best get moving," he said as he placed the ammo clip in his weapon. "Let's show these Covenant what we can do when we defend,"

At his words, a feeling of power seemed to rise through the squad. Yes! They would do it. They had to! They had to and they _were _going to defend the spotter team so they could shoot down the battle cruiser approaching the ship. If they failed, then…all they had been defending so far… all of the soldiers that had died here, including Alice,… All of it would have been for nothing. No! That was not going to happen!

"Ready?" Marcus asked when they had finished reloading their weapons. They all nodded. "Alright, let's go,"

He led them back outside. The group of wounded was now only about fifteen with about four medics and three marines left there. Hans and Debbie were among them and Marcus ran over to them. Debbie saw him coming and got up and embraced him.

"I'm glad you're still alive," he said to her.

"So am I," she replied. "One of the marines here told me what happened. Oh, Marcus, I'm so sorry," she embraced him again.

He smiled a little as he rested his head on her shoulder. "Thanks," he said.

It was good to be in a hug with her again, just like before…several years ago when they were both young and eager to join the UNSC, but now this…this war, all this death and destruction on an enormous scale. Mankind being pushed back to It's home system, which it would, no doubt, have to defend soon. If only it could end here…right now, then they could all go back to their normal lives.

"Marcus!" Stinger's voice called and he looked over his shoulder at the squad. "Pelican's comin' in!"  
>he pointed up towards the ship and Marcus and Debbie looked to see another pelican flying toward the clearing. Sighing, he turned back to face Debbie.<p>

"I have to go," he said. He gave her one last hug. "Look after yourself," he told her.

"I will," she replied, hugging him tightly as if wanting to leave a lasting impression on him. "I'll see you when the last of the pelicans comes to take us out of here," he nodded and broke away from her. "Give 'em Hell,"

He nodded again and ran back to his squad. The pelican that Stinger had pointed to descended down towards the ground, coming to a halt next to them. A group of two marines jumped down, holding radio and co-ordinating equipment in their hands. Both of them had a pistol clipped to their belts.

"Hey guys," one of them said. "Here to stop the battle cruisers,"

Marcus nodded. "Then we better hurry," he said "Lead the way,"

The two marines ran past them towards the alleyway where Alice had come out of when she was being chased by the Covenant. The squad followed, though Alima was a bit quiet going down here as the marines began explaining to the rest of the squad how their radio equipment worked and the others began asking the marines what to do when they reached a high point.

"When we get to a high point, we'll point the laser designator at the battle cruiser and transmit the coordinates to the _Michigan_," the second marine explained. "You guys'll have to defend us until It's ready,"

"How long's that gonna take?" Marcus asked.

"About two or three minutes," the first marine replied. "Usually, this stuff wouldn't even take a minute, but this is an older version of the stuff and right now we need whatever can shoot down a battle cruiser rather than trying to take it head on with our ground weapons,"

"I just hope we'll still be alive when that thing's ready to fire," Tanya said.

"Same here," Stinger piped up.

They reached the end of the alleyway and turned right into a kind of narrow path with buildings along both sides, the entrances into them either broken down or open. Some of the building had a ladder attached to them or a flight of stairs along the outside wall, all leading to the roof. The marines ran down the path, looking at each of the houses as they passed and muttering to themselves. They were debating which one to use. They needed one that was close to the battle cruiser for their radio equipment to get a clear lock on the enemy ship.

Finally, they picked one of the houses.

"Up here," the first marine said and he and the second marine ran up the flight of stairs of the fifth building along the left side of the path. The squad followed. When they reached the top, the marines crouched down in the middle of the roof, away from the sides of the roof and safe from the Covenant infantry. As the squad came up onto the roof, they saw two rocket shells lying nearby. This was the roof Alice had been on when she destroyed the wraith, just… what, ten minutes earlier before…

"Alright, setting up," one of the marines muttered. "You guys better get into position. The Covenant'll do whatever it takes to stop us when they find out what we're doing,"

The squad obeyed and rushed over to the edges of the roof facing the pathway where the remains of the wraith were and laid down, keeping them set on the end of the pathway or on the surrounding buildings. The Covenant would do anything to get them. They had seen a group of Jackals try and climb over the rooftops of the buildings nearby earlier on so they were not taking any chances in leaving them alone as the Covenant would try again to climb over them. Behind them, the two marines muttered to each other as they set up the radio equipment. Marcus glanced over his shoulder to see the first marine set down a flat circular shaped device and it opened up and a long thin aerial-like wire with a tiny ball at the top of it rose up out of the centre of it. It stopped after rising about a foot from the circular device and the ball opened up into a dish that pointed over to the battle cruiser. The second marine was working on a small computer he was carrying.

"Keep moving! We must continue the attack!"

Marcus turned his head round so fast he heard his neck click as he looked down to the end of the pathway at the turning. A moment later, an Elite and group of four Grunts lumbered out from behind the turning and began walking down the pathway towards the command centre. Marcus turned his head and nodded to his team members. They nodded in unison and aimed their weapons down at the Covenant.

"Me scared!" one of the Grunts whimpered.

"What is there to be scared of, you fool!" the Elite barked at the Grunt. "The Humans are almost defeated. We might even have the last few kills, so liven up a-"

A burst of gunfire had exploded in the air as the Elite abruptly stopped talking and fell to the ground, dead. The Grunts immediately freaked out and began running around the pathway, screaming and waving their arms about in the air in terror. The squad began firing at them as well, quickly picking them off too.

"Okay, It's set," one of the marines said, making the squad look at them over their shoulders from where they were. "Now we just need to leave it for about two minutes for the cannon to-"

"Kill them! Do not let them activate that device!"

The squad and the two marines looked to their right across the rooftops to see two minor Elites, armed with Covenant carbines, running towards them. The Elites fired at the marines, who grabbed the pistols and returned fire, but their weapons were obsolete compared to the Elites', and plus they had no armour to protect them. Both were hit and fell to the floor, dead. The squad went to fire on them but a few blasts struck their bodysuits from below. Marcus looked down to see three Jackals at the turning of the pathway below; their shields raised in front of them and their plasma pistols at the side, pointed up at them.

"Stop the Elites, quick!" Marcus ordered as he fired a burst of ammo down at the Jackals.

Instantly, Tyler, who was on the end of the row got to his feet and fired a burst of ammo at the Elites. The bullets broke through the shield of the creature, killing it and making the Elite fall off the rooftop to the ground below. The other Elite, however, fired a carbine shot at Tyler, hitting him in the shoulder. The blow felt like something had shattered his shoulder bone and he fell to the floor. His holographic meter appeared above his wrist, revealing the level in the bar to be in the red level. Just as he was about to get up, another round stuck his side, making the level in the bar fall down further and disappear from the bar altogether. His shield was gone! Another round and he would be dead!

Tyler half rose up and fired a burst of ammo at the Elite as it was about to jump from the rooftop of the building next to theirs. The bullets hit the creature in the shoulder and disabled It's shield, but did not kill it, though it made it stagger backwards. Tyler smiled. The Elite was an easy target.

CLICK! What the…? CLICK! He swore under his breath. He was out of ammunition, and the Elite heard his gun click and knew it as well. Before Tyler could react, the Elite jumped onto the rooftop and landed on top of him, clutching his neck with It's large armoured hand to strangle him to death.

"GET OFF HIM!" Tanya yelled as she saw her friend in danger, drawing the attention of the others from the Jackals, though they were recaptured quickly as a few blasts narrowly missed their heads.

She rushed over and struck the Elite the side, knocking it to the ground. The Elite growled and shot up from the floor, It's eyes narrowed and It's teeth bared like an animal baring It's teeth to show that it was the boss, which was pretty much what was going on here, only the Elite was doing this to attack rather than to intimidate. It charged towards Tanya and ploughed into her, knocking her to the ground, but just as the Elite went to attack her further, Tyler shot up from the floor and threw himself at the Elite to protect Tanya, wrapping his arm around the neck of the creature. The Elite roared in surprise and stumbled over to the rooftop, almost stepping on Marcus' hand. The others tried to help but before they could do anything, the Elite lost It's footing and fell off the roof, with Tyler still wrapping his arm around It's neck, landing with a painful thud on the ground below.

"Tyler!" Marcus exclaimed as he looked down at his friend, having to ducking to avoid a blast from the Jackals, who Stinger, Alima and Tanya began firing on. "You okay?"

Tyler groaned from under the knocked out body of the Elite and pushed it off him. "Y-Yeah!" he called back as he stood up. "I'm okay!"

"Tyler, look out!" Stinger warned.

A scream pierced the air as a light green blast struck him in the stomach. Tyler collapsed onto his knees, tears forming in his eyes as the pain overwhelmed him like a flood. Blood began to pour out of the wound and trail down his bodysuit through a hole in the stomach where the green blast had hit. As he looked up at the Jackals, another struck him in the shoulder, making him cry out in pain again as he was thrown to the ground. The others fired desperately at the Jackals to stop them, but their shields protected them, enabled them to fire from underneath them at their exposed enemy.

"Hang on, Tyler!" Marcus called down as he reloaded his weapon and stood up to jump down.

Tyler groaned as he looked at his body. The wounds…they were deep and blood was pouring out of them. His bodysuit was starting to turn a maroon colour from the blood mixing with the green colour of his bodysuit. It hurt like Hell.

A hiss caught his attention and, with his weak vision, looked ahead to see of the Jackals, It's shield still raised over it to protect it from the barrage from above, pointing it's plasma pistol at him. A light green ball began to form on the end of the weapon. Tyler knew what was coming and closed his eyes, ready and waiting for the blast to strike him. The ball on the end of the plasma pistol grew bigger and bigger.

Then, the Jackal released his grip on the trigger.

All Tyler's friends could do was watch as the heavily charged light green blast soared through the air and struck him in the head. In an instant, he was killed and his head thudded to the ground.

"NOO!" Marcus yelled.

He and the others fired a barrage at the Jackals, though the bullets just continued to bounce off their shields. The squad then jumped down and swung their weapons at the Jackals, striking their shields aside and then fired at them, filling the air with a chorus of screeches as the creatures were hit and fell to the ground, dead.

Marcus ran over to Tyler's body and knelt down beside it, desperately trying to hold back tears as he looked at his comrade. He had been a good soldier, but now he was dead. That was two under his command that were dead. First Alice, and now Tyler. This was horrible! If one of the others under his command died…he would not able to live with himself.

Stinger, Tanya and Alima walked over, looking down at the body of their comrade, all of them deeply saddened by his loss. That was another member of their squad gone, and, though it was in the back of their minds, they began to wonder who would be next. That was the real question in every soldier's mind though. Whenever he and his friends went into battle, he would always wonder, even if it was at the back of his mind, would he die during it?

After a moment, Marcus stood up, but said nothing. It was obvious he was really distraught about what happened. Alima walked over to him and gave him a hug, which he returned, sniffing a little.

"I'm sorry," he said after a few moments. Alima pulled back from him. "I'm sorry, guys," he said.

"What for?" Alima asked him.

"For letting Alice and Tyler get killed," he replied, letting go of Alima and stepping back a little towards the command centre, half-turning towards it as well. "I shouldn't be leading us,"

"Marcus, it wasn't your fault," Alima told him, resting her hand on his shoulder. "You couldn't have saved him,"

"Yes I could," he replied, his voice starting to turn angry. He pushed her hand off his shoulder and stared down at Tyler's body again as if in a trance. Then, he looked up at his three remaining squad members, a horrible thought etching It's way into his head. It was horrible to think about, but would it happen? With two members of his squad, he began to wonder if they would be killed as well. Another death would destroy him completely. He would not be able to cope with it. He-

BOOM! A large explosion above them three threw them to the ground and rubble and dust was sprayed over them. Marcus groaned as he lifted his head up from the ground and turned over. His eyes grew wide, so much so they looked like they were going to pop out of his head.

The building the radio transmitter had been on had been destroyed. The roof was gone, along with most of the two side walls and a large hole was on the front wall facing the squad.

"Oh no!" Stinger gasped as he, Tanya and Alima picked themselves up from the ground.

Fear began to grip Marcus again. The radio transmitter was gone, and with it possibly their only chance to protect the _Michigan _and those on board it. He looked over at the battle cruiser. It was getting closer. Another five to ten minutes and it would be directly over the ship and then it would be over. The Covenant would have claimed another victim in the battle for Reach and hundreds more UNSC forces would be added to the total death toll.

Marcus got up from the floor, staring helplessly up at the battle cruiser for a moment. The others looked at each other and then at him, asking themselves: _what do we do now?_

"C'mon!" Marcus piped up after another moment of silence.

He sprinted back down the pathway towards the command centre. The others followed him. They ran through the building and out through the side entrance. The last of the wounded were being loaded onto the pelican. Debbie had already climbed on board and, with the help of another medic, was setting down the wounded on the resting area seats. Hans was helping another marines put the wounded into the pelican.

One of the medics saw the group. He waved at them

"Hey guys, over here!" he called. "C'mon!"

They ran over to the pelican and the medic stood at the end of the resting area.

"You all did good holding off the Covenant from here," he said to them.

"We need to contact the captain," Marcus told the medic. "Is your pelican's radio in contact with the captain?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?" the marine replied, but he received no answer from Marcus as he climbed onto the pelican and stepped over the wounded as he moved towards the cog pit door. The others climbed on board. One of them asked Tanya what was going on and she told him. Marcus opened the cog pit door and saw the pilot sitting in the right seat. He turned to face Marcus and he recognized him to be one of the pilots that had taken him to the mountains earlier on this morning.

"Whoa, Marcus," the pilot gasped. "What's going on?"

"I need to talk to the captain, quickly," Marcus replied.

The pilot wanted to ask why, but he clearly saw in the fearful look on Marcus' face that it was best he did not ask what was going on and he pressed a small button on the control panel in front of him. A small hole opened in the control panel and a small speaker-like object on top of another thin aerial-like object rose up out of the hole.

"_This is captain Parker, I have received your transmission. Identify yourself, over," _came the captain's voice.

"Captain, this is Marcus," Marcus replied. "I have bad news,"

_"Oh no, what is it, Marcus?" _Parker asked, worry in his voice.

"The marines, with the radio equipment, we had to protect are dead, sir," Marcus explained. "And we've lost Tyler as well. And the radio equipment's gone and the Covenant battle cruiser's getting closer to the ship, sir,"

Marcus heard Parker swear angrily from the radio. Then, he heard him breath heavily in a hopeless manner like a general watching his army be defeated, which was kind of what was happening now.

_"Then we'll have to leave now and quickly," _Parker said after a few seconds. _"Get back to the ship quickly!" _he ordered.

"We can't, sir," Marcus told him. "By the time we get back there and the engines are ready the battle cruiser would have torn right through us," Again, Parker swore. Marcus could not blame him, though. It was a hard moment. Their only main defence on the ground was gone and now the Covenant battle cruiser was heading towards a ship jam packed with wounded and workers. If the enemy ship got over it, then there would be nothing to stop it.

Hopelessness swept over Marcus like water on rock. It was as if he could feel it coming from all those in the bridge as well. Even from the pilot next to him, though he could not see him, he knew that hope was beginning to fade from him as well. Marcus, the captain and everyone else, though they did not want to believe it, had to accept the fact. There was nothing they could do. It was over.

Unless…

"Wait a minute, sir," Marcus said after a moment, a glimmer of hope shooting through him. "Wait, sir, can't the main cannon still lock on and fire if the co-ordinates have been sent? And can it be done from another different radio?"

_"Yeah, but what good is that gonna do?" _the captain asked.

"Send over another radio," Marcus said to the captain. "But only another radio, not a team,"

"_Why, what do you have in mind, Marcus?" _concern began to rise in the captain's voice.

"I'm going to set it up again,"

_"But that means…"_

"I know! But right now, we don't have a choice," he paused and sighed. "Just make sure someone in the taskforce called Anya in the taskforce knows what happened to me and tell her not to suffer or be upset,"

"_Um, Marcus…" _Parker began, but Marcus stopped him.

"Sir, don't try and convince me!" he said. "I'll be waiting in the clearing," and before captain Parker could speak again, Marcus turned and walked out of the cog pit into the resting area. The others in the resting area turned to look at him when he came out of the cog pit.

"What's going on?" Tanya asked him. He did not reply and began stepping over the wounded again as he walked towards the end of the resting area. "Marcus, what is going on?" Tanya asked him again.

"I've told the captain to send over another radio," he replied when he reached the end of the resting area. "I'm going to try and stop the Covenant battle cruiser,"

"Marcus, you can't," Stinger told him. "In case you haven't noticed, the first radio's gone and the co-ordinates are most likely gone with it,"

"Not really," he replied. "Captain Parker told me that as long as the co-ordinates have been sent, then the main cannon on the ship can still lock on and fire on the battle cruiser, even if It's from a different radio-"

"But in order to do that, you have set it up again," Alima finished the sentence.

He nodded at her. "I'm going to stay behind and reactivate the radio,"

"What do you mean you're going to stay behind?" a voice behind him asked and he turned. It was Debbie. She had a worried look on her face.

"Debbie," he said, pausing for a moment.

"What are you doing, Marcus?" she asked him.

"I'm staying behind, Debbie," he told her.

As soon as he said those words to her, the effect of them hit her like a brick wall. Her breaths became deeper and she shook her head slightly.

"No," she said. "You're kidding me, right?" she said, hoping that he was.

"No," he replied. "I'm not,"

"Marcus," Stinger said, making him turn to face him. "You can't be serious. Y-you know you won't make it,"

"I know that," he replied. "But I have to," the whir of pelican engines outside filled the air. Marcus looked out towards the end wall of the resting area as if he could see through it at the approaching craft. "I have to go,"

"No!" Debbie exclaimed, getting up and grabbing his arm. "Marcus, you can't,"

"I have to, Debbie, or we'll all die!" he told her, rounding on her and gently pushing her hand off his arm. "Listen, I know you still love me, but I have to go stay here and stop that battle cruiser," he looked into her eyes and saw them filled with sadness. She sighed and embraced him tightly.

"I don't want you to stay here," she said to him as a tear ran down her cheek. "I don't want you to die,"

Marcus placed a hand and lifted her head up to look at him. He wished he could he could stay, he really did, but she was going to have to accept that sometimes in war, some soldiers had to give their lives to allow their comrades to live and fight on. Unfortunately, now was one of those times.

"I'm sorry, Debbie," he said. He looked up into the resting area. "Hans," he said.

Hans got up and walked over. Gently, Marcus pulled Debbie off of him, despite her attempts to hold onto him.

"What is it?" Hans asked.

"Hans, you've got to take care of her now," Marcus said to him, pushing Debbie into his arms. "Promise me: you'll look after her,"

Hans just stood there for a moment, staring at Marcus in complete shock. This was a hard thing to believe, let alone accept. Marcus wanted him to look after Debbie. After a moment, he nodded.

"Marcus, you have to stay though," he protested, but Marcus shook his head.

"There isn't another way," he replied. "I'm sorry,"

Debbie buried her face in her hands and began to weep. Hans wrapped his arms around her to comfort her. Marcus walked over to her and took her hand in his. She looked up at him, tears streaming out of her eyes and he embraced her tightly.

"By, Debbie," he said, sniffing a little.

"B-bye, Marcus!" she replied, gasping for breath a little.

After a moment of holding each other in their arms, he released her and walked to the end of the resting area. Just as he reached the end of the resting area, he turned and took one more look at his team mates and then at everyone else. Everyone was looking at him.

"Good luck," he said and he jumped down to the ground.

Those were the last two words they would hear from him.

The sand on the ground was kicked up into the air, making it swirl around him like a dust bowl, as the other pelican landed nearby. Marcus ran over to the back of it, which was facing him, and a marine handed him a set of radio equipment like that of the radio team he had seen several minutes earlier carrying.

"Here you go, man," the marine said, handing Marcus the radio. "And thanks, man," he added.

"It's alright. Now get going.

"Here you go, man," the marine said, handing Marcus the radio. "And thanks, man," he added.

"It's alright. Now get going," he replied. The marine nodded and the pelican hovered back into the air and flew away back towards the _Michigan_. Marcus looked down at the radio equipment in his hand.

_Well this is it _he thought. _It's just me now _

Overhead, the pelican with Debbie, Hans and the others on flew after the first pelican. Marcus watched it go, as if he could look through the metallic floor up at Debbie, who was probably crying over him staying behind or looking down at him. He wished he could go with her, but fate had decided that could happen. At least what he was doing would ensure she lived, that is if the main cannon came out the _Michigan_ and fired in time.

Suddenly, a hand rested on his shoulder, making him jump. He shot round to see Stinger, Tanya and Alima standing behind him.

"What the…?" he exclaimed. "What are you guys doing?"

"We're staying here with you, Marcus," Stinger replied.

"What? Why? You guys should have left!" he half-shouted at them.

"We wanted to, but you're our team leader and we wanted to fight alongside you!" Stinger replied, his voice also rising a little. "Plus, the Covenant has already taken two of our squad. We're not losing you as well, Marcus. At least, not without us being there. If you're staying, then so will we. Besides, you'll need our help,"

Marcus went to reply but stopped and, after a moment's pause, sighed. He could not argue them to go back to the _Michigan_, and it would be too late now anyway, but it really did surprise him that they wanted to stay and help him allow the _Michigan_ to escape. He looked up at the _Michigan_.

"Guys, this is your one and only chance to get away," he said.

"And we're throwing it away to help you," Stinger told him. "We're not leaving, Marcus,"

He turned his head back to look at them. In their eyes, he knew he could see the fact they were scared and probably even a little annoyed at throwing away their one chance to get away, but if there was one thing he saw in their eyes that was the dominant feeling, it was the friendship and bond they all shared. They had lost two already. They were not going to lose any more on their own. This time, if they were to die, then they would all die.

"So where do we go?" Alima asked him.

Marcus replied by looking over his shoulder at the remains of the command centre.


	23. A final stand

Marcus ran over to the side of the command centre building, Alima, Stinger and Tanya followed him. As they reached the command centre, they saw that the ladder had been destroyed about three quarters of the way up, about three feet short of the section of the roof it led up to, which was still standing despite the majority of the roof being destroyed and resting on almost completely unstable steel and concrete columns within the building.

"We'll do it up there," he said, glancing over his shoulder at his squad.

"Up there?" Tanya repeated, a sense of worry in her voice. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Why, you scared of unstable buildings?" Marcus asked and he began climbing up the ladder towards the roof. As he climbed, he muttered to himself: "Because I'm sure as Hell am,"

The other three looked at each other for a moment as if deciding whether it was best to follow Marcus before he called down to them from the roof and they began climbing up. As they did, Marcus turned and moved up a narrow path of the roof, which was only just under a metre wide from the side of the roof and a collapsed section, where the rest of the roof had been, that had formed a kind of slide of rubble down to the ground, and stopped and began setting up the radio equipment. The aerial came up out of the circular shaped device and turned in a kind of dish and pointed towards the CCS battle cruiser, which was nearing the _Michigan_. It was then Marcus stopped. He had managed to set up the aerial but did not know how to set up the computer, though there was someone on his team that did.

"Alima," Marcus said, looking over his shoulder at the side of the roof where the ladder had come up to. She was kneeling down next to Stinger, both with one of their hands reaching down to pull Tanya up from the ladder. She looked over her shoulder at him.

"What is it, Marcus?" she asked as she felt Tanya grab her hand and she and Stinger pulled her up onto the roof.

"D'you know how to work these type of computers to set the distance and location of the ship?" he asked. She nodded. "Then I need you over here,"

Alima ran over and knelt down next to him and began working on the computer. "Give me a second," she said. "And we best get ready, the Covenant'll be heading this way with loads of troops,"

Marcus nodded in agreement. He had almost forgotten about the approaching Covenant army for the moment and he stood up and looked out towards the desert to see the Covenant vehicles at the front of the army moving closer. Though they were still quite far away, he could just about make out the shapes of the wraiths moving along the ground. A few whirs in the air made him and the others look up and three banshees flew overhead towards the _Michigan_, no doubt to another fiery death from the AA turrets along the sides of the ship.

"We're in for a wild fight," Stinger said as he looked around the landscape in front of the command centre.

"Okay, It's done," Alima said and she stood up. The small aerial dish emitted a small beep and a small timer appeared on the computer screen. It read **03:00 **and began counting down. They had three minutes to defend their position.

"Well, this is it," Marcus said as he looked down at his weapon in his hands. The others walked up alongside him, looking out at the approaching horde of Covenant, whose infantry, which they could see, was beginning to run across the dirt road that separated the two building areas. "It's up to us to make sure they get out of here," he added, looking back at the _Michigan_.

Silence fell between them, the noise of the air being pierced by the occasional distant explosions from the buildings on the outer areas of the base and the roars and shouts of the approaching Covenant.

"Are you guys ready?" Marcus asked his squad.

They all nodded. "We're ready," they all replied in unison.

Marcus nodded and looked back once more at the Covenant. The first of the wave of Covenant infantry was rushing behind the outer buildings of the second group of buildings. This was it. This was their last stand. They had to hold out just for three minutes, but they knew very well that in war death would come in a lot less time than that, especially in this war with the Covenant.

"Let's go," Marcus said.

He ran down the slide of rubble on the front of the command centre to the ground, the rest of the squad followed. When they reached the ground, they took cover behind individual piles of rubble and raised their weapons at the pathway behind the wraith, which was a kind of shield to them but also to any approaching Covenant. They waited tensely for the Covenant too appear at the other end of the pathway. One second passed…two seconds…three…four…

Then, a tall bulky figure with light blue armour ran out into the pathway. A minor Elite. Another minor Elite followed and behind the second Elite was a squad of ten Grunts.

"Down there!" the first minor Elite said. "Find and kill any survivors!" he ordered and he led the squad down the pathway towards the four taskforce soldiers. Behind them, another group of Covenant, a squad of six Jackals, appeared at the end of the pathway and followed the Elites.

"Get ready!" Marcus whispered to his squad, who nodded and cocked their weapons, ready to fire when the order was given.

The moments ticked by quickly, the noise of the Covenant forces growing louder as they came closer. The Grunts lumbered around the remains of the wraith whilst the Elites began climbing over it. Behind them, the Jackals were nearing the wraith. They were almost all within range. The first minor Elite jumped down from the wraith to the ground and barked a command at some of the Grunts, who had stopped at the right side of the wraith. They quickly lumbered on towards the command centre, towards the squad of four Humans they had no idea was in front of them.

"NOW!" Marcus yelled all of a sudden.

All four quickly rose up and fired a barrage of bullets at the Covenant squad. The first minor Elite was hit and fell to the ground, dead, riddled with bullets. The second Elite tried to jump down and hide behind the wraith, but failed and was also killed.

"AAAAAHHHH! LEADER DEAD!" one of the Grunts screamed. "RUN AWAY!"

The Grunts immediately scattered, panicking and waving their arms about in the air in terror. Most of them began running back down the pathway they had come from, directly into the squad of Jackals. The Jackals screeched in surprise and were quickly pushed and shoved to one side as the tide of their smaller comrades ran into them. Marcus saw this as he began to reload his weapon.

"Quick, let's get 'em!" he exclaimed and he ran out from behind the pile of rubble. The others ran out after him. When they reached the gap between the wraith and the building, they fired at the force of Covenant. The high pitched screams and screeches of dying Grunts and Jackals filled the air as the barrage cut through the Covenant.

Finally, after about two or three seconds, the barrage stopped and the squad lowered their weapons. All of the Covenant Grunts and Jackals were lying dead in a small pile on the ground in front of them.

"One load down," Stinger said. "But a million more to go,"

"Should we try and move down and hold them at the end of the pathway?" Tanya asked.

"No, not a good idea," Marcus replied. "We should stay here and wait for them to come to us,"

"AAAAHHHH!"

Suddenly, Alima was thrown to the ground as a purple laser appeared all of a sudden from nowhere and then disappeared almost as quickly as it came into thin air. Marcus grabbed her by the arm and dragged her behind the wraith as blood began to drip from her shoulder.

"ARGH!" she cried. "It…it hurts!"

"You'll be alright," Marcus replied trying to calm her down. She had to calm down. If she kept up her stress level, then the blood flow in her body would increase and more of it would be lost and if that happened, she would die from blood loss. "Breathe deeply and try and keep still," he said.

She nodded slightly and, wincing in pain, began to breathe deeply, though it was hard to try and keep still. She placed a hand on the wound on her shoulder and pushed down on it. It would stop the wound from bleeding, but it would not heal it. She needed medical equipment. Marcus looked over his shoulder at the command centre. There was small hole just big enough for a man to fit through into the building. Surely there had to be medical equipment in there!

"Guys, c'mon! We're going into the command centre," he said to Tanya and Stinger, who both fired a burst of ammo at the rooftop of the building at the end of the pathway. A screech erupted from the end of the pathway, indicating a Jackal, most probably the sniper that had injured Alima, had been killed.

"What about the radio equipment?" Stinger asked.

Marcus looked up at the roof of the command centre. Damn it! There was that as well. They could not leave the radio or the Covenant would destroy it, and if they destroyed it there was no way the squad would be able to receive another from the _Michigan_.

He sighed in annoyance. "Alright, Stinger, Tanya, you two go up to the roof and hold off the Covenant from there. I'll deal with Alima,"

Tanya and Stinger nodded and ran past them up the slide of rubble to the roof. Marcus, looking past the remains of the wraith once more just to make sure that there were no Covenant coming up the pathway before he picked up Alima and, resting their weapons on her torso, ran with her over to the hole in the front of the command centre, having to turn sideways and crouch down slightly to fit through the gap into the command centre.

When they were inside the command centre, which was almost completely filled with rubble and almost completely dark save for the light coming through the hole in the front of the command centre and the side entrance doorway, Marcus looked around the main room, trying to find anything that might look promising in helping Alima, but most of the medical equipment had been either used up or taken. There was nothing!

Then, his eyes rested on a small box on the right wall of the room. It was open and he saw a small injection needle in the box with a cream coloured liquid inside the needle. It was a morphine serum. It would not cure the wound but it would at least stop it from hurting and enable Alima to walk again.

He rushed over and gently set her down on the floor. He then picked up the injection needle and checked it to make sure it was not broken. It was not.

"Sorry if this hurts, Alima," he said.

"Right now…" she replied, gasping a little in pain. "I…really…couldn't care…if it did,"

He gave a small laugh and injected the serum, the liquid going into her blood flow. He threw the needle onto the floor and watched as Alima sat up as the serum began to take effect. She moved her arm that was attached to the wounded shoulder to see if she could still use it. Thankfully, she could.

"Thank you, Marcus," she said, handing him his weapon.

"It's okay," he replied. A barrage of bullets being fired exploded from outside, followed by a high-pitched yell. "We better go," he said. "Let's go out the side way,"

She nodded and, after getting up, ran with him over to the side entrance. They ran outside and Alima began climbing up the ladder to the top. As she reached the top of the ladder, a blast flew overhead in the sky a few metres above the roof. Another blast followed the first and a burst of ammo filled the air afterwards. Alima climbed on to the top and Tanya, who was nearby and looked over towards where the ladder had once been attached to the side of the roof, saw Alima and she quickly came over and pulled her up onto the roof.

"Are you okay?" she asked her.

Alima nodded. "Yes, thank you," she replied.

A few moments later, Marcus appeared on the roof after her and rushed over to the radio. It read **01:00**. Just one more minute!

"Watch it!" Stinger shouted all of a sudden.

Another wave of light blue blasts flew overhead and Marcus looked down to see a group of three minor Elites and a major Elite running towards them. The squad fired a barrage of bullets at the Elites, hitting and killing the major and one of the minors. The other two dived behind the piles of rubble the squad had been using earlier on. They fired a few blasts out from behind the rubble at the squad, who had dived to the floor to avoid the deadly blasts.

"How are we gonna get rid of these two?" Alima asked, leaning on her right more so as not to reopen her wound on her left shoulder.

"You guys got any grenades?" Tanya asked.

"I do," Stinger piped up, holding up two in his other hand.

"Pass one here," Tanya said and he threw one to her, which she caught, narrowly avoiding having her hand being hit by a blast. She pulled the pin and, sitting up, threw it down to one of the pile of rubble where one of the Elites was hiding. It hit the top and bounced off and disappeared behind it.

BOOM! The grenade exploded, followed by a roar as the Elite was thrown out from behind the pile of rubble to the ground, dead. The other Elite roared something in anger and fired a barrage of light blue blasts from It's plasma rifle at the squad.

"Keep him pinned down," Stinger said.

The others nodded and returned fire on the Elite, causing it to duck for over behind the pile of rubble. Seizing the opportunity, Stinger pulled the pin off of his grenade and threw it at the Elite. Like with Tanya's grenade, the explosive device hit the top of the pile of rubble and bounced off and disappeared behind it. Another explosion filled the air, followed by another roar, and the Elite was thrown to the ground, dead.

"Nice work, guys," Marcus said. "Now we just need to wait for the timer to end,"

"It already has," Tanya said. "Look," she added, pointing at the computer screen.

They all looked at it and saw the timer hit **00:00**. They quickly turned their heads in the direction of the _Michigan_ and saw a long thin object, with a kind of long barrel-like object on the top of it, rise up out of the side of the dome. It stopped after a bout two seconds and the barrel pointed up at the CCS battle cruiser, which the front of was just over the back of the _Michigan_. A gold coloured ball began to form on the end of the barrel. The squad watched it grow in size. Hope began to fill them. This cannon was smaller than they imagined, but captain Parker had said that this cannon was capable of destroying the CCS battle cruiser, but may have he been over-exaggerating? Hopefully not or the _Michigan _and everyone on it was dead.

Then, about five seconds later, the gold coloured ball, which had grown to about the size of a small house, flew out towards the bottom of the Covenant ship and struck it. At once, a large explosion filled the air as the ball collided with the metal of the battle cruiser. Smaller explosions erupted all along the inside of it and the CCS battle cruiser came to a halt in mid-air and began to list a little to the right away from the _Michigan_.

"We better get down from here," Marcus said, running down the slide of rubble. The others decided it was best to follow and ran after him, though none of them took their eyes off of the CCS battle cruiser. A few moments…

BOOM! Another more powerful explosion lit up the sky as the CCS battle cruiser was torn in two. The back half fell to the ground a few hundred feet from the _Michigan_, making the ground rumble violently as it hit the surface of the planet. The front half fell towards the buildings and slammed into the ground much harder, which was what the squad felt it was like as it was closer to them, and drove along it over the river and into the second area of buildings, throwing a huge cloud of dust into the air. Finally, it came to a halt about two hundred feet from the command centre, the dust dancing around it like a dustbowl.

When the dust finally settled after a few minutes, the squad broke into a cheer.

"Nice one!" Stinger exclaimed, pushing the air with his fist.

"We've done it!" Tanya exclaimed.

"Nice work in setting up the computer, Alima," Marcus said to her.

"Thanks," she replied, smiling.

They all looked back at the remains of the battle cruiser. Hope had filled them once again. The _Michigan _was safe, along with all those on board it, and hundreds more Covenant were dead. In fact, there might actually be a chance for them to call for a pelican.

"We've got enough time," Marcus said. "I'll call for a pelican," he placed a finger on the radio in his ear, but just as he was about to speak.

"WATCH OUT!" Stinger yelled all of a sudden and Marcus shot round, lowering his hand, to see three banshees dive in from the CCS battle cruiser and each fire a green ion blast at them. They all quickly scattered, narrowly avoiding being blown apart by the ion blasts and Stinger ran up the slide of rubble to the top of the command centre.

"Stinger, watch out!" Alima shouted at him and he shot round and his eyes grew wide with fear that seemed to lock him in place.

One of the banshees had flown off a little from the others, who had turned back towards the approaching Covenant, and had suddenly turned and was flying back towards them, and Stinger was his target.

"Stinger, get off of there!" Marcus shouted up at him.

But it was too late. By the time Marcus had started shouting, the banshee fired a green ion blast at the command centre. It struck the slide where Stinger had been standing and exploded. Then, the slide crumbled and caved in into the main room of the command centre.

"NOOOO!" Marcus yelled. "STINGER?" he yelled, desperately hoping to receive a reply.

He did not. Oh, this was terrible! He could not believe it! That was three squad members under his command dead and another was wounded and more vulnerable. If they were killed, then… Marcus shook his head as that thought seemed to take over his mind. No! he did not want that to happen, but he was worried, and even certain, it would happen.

"No!" Tanya said as she stared at the remains of the command centre with sad eyes. Alima did the same, her eyes filled with tears that silently rolled down her cheeks.

"Kill them all!" a deep voice from behind shouted.

The three shot round to see a wave of mortar blasts shoot up into the air and land up and down the pathway, destroying the buildings and reducing them to rubble, throwing a cloud of dust into the air. Then, a group of Elites ran out of the dust cloud. Upon seeing the Covenant soldiers, anger seemed to grip the squad.

"You bastards!" Marcus shouted at them, firing a burst of ammo at a minor Elite, killing it.

However, they quickly found themselves being forced back towards the command centre as the Elites advanced. Then, as the dust cloud began to disappear, the forms of many other Covenant soldiers, Grunts, Jackals and several large forms that were Hunters, began to become visible. Marcus swore and looked behind him over his shoulder at the hole at the front of the command centre. That was the only place they could hide in.

"Guys, in there!" he shouted to Tanya and Alima, pointing to the hole in the front of the command centre.

"WATCH OUT!" Alima screamed all of a sudden, pointing at the Covenant.

Marcus and Tanya looked and their eyes went wide. One of the Hunters had pushed It's way to the front and was charging up It's huge arm cannon, which the squad saw from the light green light coming out of the cannon attached onto It's right arm, and the cannon was aimed at them. Then, it fired.

"GET DOWN!" Marcus screamed, diving to the ground.

However, a sound that made his heart stop filled his ears. It was a scream, no two screams. No! No, that meant…!

He looked behind him over at Tanya and Alima. His heart seemed to stop again. Both of them were lying dead on the ground just inches from the hole in the front of the command centre. His body felt like it was breaking down. He felt like he was going to break down and cry. Then again, who would not?

Snapping back into reality, Marcus got up and ran towards the hole, diving into it and jumping aside behind a wall, narrowly missing another set of blasts. He heard the Covenant shout and squeak outside he readied his weapon, ready to fight them. He took a deep breath and poked his head out from behind the wall, his weapon raised, ready to fire on the Covenant.

What the…? The Covenant! He could not believe his eyes. They were retreating! They were all…fleeing back in the direction of their army. Why?

However, a different feeling was filling Marcus as he looked down and saw Alima and Tanya's bodies on the ground just feet from him. He moved back into the command centre and rested his back against the wall of the room and buried his face in his knees, breathing heavily as he began to cry. Tears ran down his face.

He could not believe it. For just a handful of days, he had proved himself to be a good leader of a squad of taskforce soldiers. He had led them through dangers and battles and even through an attack on a CCS battle cruiser, but now… Now they were all dead! All but him!

Why? Why had he been allowed to live? He did not want them to die! They were like his family to him. Stinger's words ran over his mind repeatedly: _"If you're staying, then so will we," _That…that was true loyalty and friendship. He lifted his head up and sniffed, wiping away a tear from his eye.

_It really is just me now _he mentally said to himself.

He looked over at the pile of rubble, which had been what Stinger had been standing on moments earlier, and then at the wall behind him, as if he could see through it, at the place where the bodies of Alima and Tanya lay.

"I'm sorry, guys," he muttered. "I didn't want this,"

Another set of tears worked their way into his eyes and he wiped them away. It was not fair for him to live and them to die. It was not fair, not at all!

Suddenly, a roaring sound filled the air, making the ground rumble slightly. Marcus gasped a little and went wide-eyed. What was going on? Wait; was it the Covenant ships glassing the planet? No, it could not be. The ground would be rumbling more if that was the case. The only other possibility was…

Marcus crawled out of the command centre as quickly as he could, quickly looking up at the CCS battle cruisers. They were all holding position in the sky several miles away. The roaring noise was coming from the direction of the… He looked and saw the _Michigan _resting on the enormous landing pillars, only large columns of fire were shooting out from underneath it. It was taking off.

Then, like a sleeping giant rising from It's slumber, the _Michigan_ began to rise up into the sky, the columns of fire forcing it up from the landing pads, which began to fall as if they were collapsing. Marcus slumped down onto his knees and watched as the _Michigan _rose higher and higher into the air, almost disappearing into the clouds before it came to a shalt in mid-air as the columns of fire that were shooting out from underneath it suddenly stopped. It hung there in mid-air for a moment as if frozen. Then, the engines on the back of the craft activated and, in a sonic boom, the craft shot forward and Marcus watched as it rose up into the air, disappearing into the clouds, but the light blue colour from the engines still shone brightly from behind the clouds, though they began to shrink as the _Michigan _climbed higher in the sky until they finally disappeared.

Marcus sighed in defeat and looked around him at the war torn landscape. Everything was either damaged or destroyed and the many bodies of the Covenant littered the ground along with the bodies of marines and the remains of Covenant and UNSC vehicles. Among the bodies of the UNSC forces here were those who had been part of his squad, those who had been his friends, but now they were all dead. He felt like his heart was braking, like a part of him had been taken from him.

He mentally cursed himself for being alive. Why him? Why was he allowed to live and they were not? That was a question most soldiers asked after service in war and witnessing their friends and many others be killed. It was horrible!

Marcus looked up at the area of the sky where the _Michigan _had disappeared into. At least the defence of the ship had not been in vain. The many wounded on board had escaped, along with many more marines and workers, among them Debbie and Hans, two people he was glad had escaped. All of them were safe and had been spared from death.

But not without the help and sacrifice of Marcus' friends.


	24. A lasting legacy

It was midday on the planet of Reach, April 10th in the year 2552. Earlier this morning, Reach, a bustling UNSC military planet, had been at work and had been preparing for a day of searching and guarding and work for It's soldiers and the taskforce. It was just the start of another ordinary day.

However, at around mid-morning, the Covenant, Humanity's greatest foe and currently in a war against them, launched a full scale invasion of Reach. The taskforce and the UNSC on the planet were caught completely off guard by the attack and evacuations had been set up all across Reach to evacuate the workers and the army from the planet. The taskforce, based at the base where the UNSC battleship _Axiom _had been based, had taken part in the defence but, despite their skill and their special bodysuits, they were little match against the wave after wave of Covenant infantry and their superior firepower in land vehicles and ships. Most were killed within a few hours, mostly from when the Covenant began to glass the planet, but several had survived the glassing and had gone to other bases to try and leave the planet.

At one such base where the UNSC battleship, the _Michigan_, was based, a group of six taskforce soldiers had arrived from the _Axiom_ base and had taken part in the defence of the _Michigan_ whilst the wounded and the workers were being taken to it by pelican. Eventually, five of the six strong squad of taskforce soldiers were killed, all but the leader. Marcus. He had been a marine just over a month earlier but coming here had brought him into a new life and now it had come crashing down. All of his squad were dead, along with most of his friends.

_**Michigan **_**base**

Marcus sat on the ground on his knees, looking up at the sky where the _Michigan_ had disappeared into. His squad was dead and he was on his own, well almost. There was the Covenant here still but they were not going to look after him or comfort him. They were going to kill him. He looked up at the CCS battle cruisers that had paused in the sky and were hovering there as if they had been frozen. That was strange, but what was even stranger was that when he had come out of the command centre all of the Covenant infantry had fled.

Marcus stood up from the ground. So what was he to do now? Was he to stay here and fight the Covenant or go…but where would he go? There was nowhere to go.

Wait…what about Anya? The last time he had seen her was at the _Axiom _base barracks. Surely she had escaped. Maybe if he went back there and tried to contact the ship, he could find out if she had escaped from Reach. Yes! A tingle of hope had filled him once again, but the problem was: how was he to get there?

"I hope you are not thinking of leaving,"

Marcus went wide-eyed. That voice! It was deep, and if it was deep… He turned around and standing a few metres from him was an Elite, though this one was not a minor or a major. This was a zealot, the kind of specially trained soldiers that were usually sent on high risk missions. Both of his fists were closed, but in one he could see an energy sword activator.

"Where are the rest of the Covenant?" Marcus asked.

"I have ordered them to fall back," the zealot replied. "I presume you do not remember me," he added.

"Should I?" Marcus asked in a kind of mocking tone that sounded like he did not care.

The Elite growled but did not make a move towards him. Instead, he just stood there.

"I was among a group of my comrades in the same line of work as me yesterday in the mountains," the Elite explained. "We had been searching for something but had been stopped by you and your group of soldiers," the voice of the Elite began to deepen a little in anger. "And you ruined everything. You destroyed our ship, you killed my comrades and hundreds of my men, but worst of all: you destroyed our chance to complete our sacred mission,"

Marcus nodded a little. So this was one of the zealots he had fired on yesterday. Wow! Talk about revenge, and to be honest, he had to congratulate the Elite on finding him and coming to him at the right moment when he was on his own.

"Well, it would been a waste of time if you went back," Marcus said to the zealot. "I went there earlier this morning and it was destroyed,"

The Elite growled again. "That is just the problem with you and your race! You are weak and you do not think!" he barked. "Well, I am glad we have defeated your people here as revenge for what you have done. And I am most certainly glad you are still here,"

"Why, you miss me?" Marcus asked in a mocking tone.

The Elites' eyes narrowed. "No, I have come looking for you for two things Human. Firstly, to exact revenge, and second, which I intend to do when I have killed you, is to obtain something from you. Something of great importance to our Great Journey,"

"Well whatever it is, I don't have it," Marcus replied, his voice remaining defiant. "And if you're gonna kill me, threatening me and trying to scare me won't be enough, split-lip"

At these words, he would have expected the Elite to grow angry and attack him, which was why he had tensed his body, but, to his surprise, the Elite just laughed. A puzzled look etched across Marcus' face. Why was the Elite laughing?

"What's so funny?" Marcus asked.

"Oh, I don't have to threaten you or scare you," the Elite answered. "I have two things here that will make you breakdown; more than you have done today,"

Before Marcus could ask again, the zealot brought back his hand, the one that did not hold the energy sword activator, and threw two floors down onto the ground in front of Marcus. He knelt down and saw them to be a small square shaped object that he recognized to be his holographic photo holder and a tiny clear vial that was no bigger than his thumb. Inside it was a small strand of brown hair. Marcus picked up the two objects in his hand and picked up the vial in the other.

"Whose hair is this?" he asked, staring confusingly at it.

"Oh you know very well," the Elite answered. "That hair belongs to someone you know very well. Someone we have dealt with already. Does it, how you Humans say: ring a bell?"

Marcus just stared at the zealot and then at the hair within the vial. Why was the Elite telling him that he knew the person very well who the hair belonged to. He knew loads of people very well that had brown hair. It was kind of a strange and stupid question and it was wasting precious time for him to go to the _Axiom _and try and contact it to see if Anya was on board it and see if she was o-

Wait a minute…Anya had brown hair, but that did not mean… No! No, that was not true! A worried look etched across his face and he looked down at the holographic photo of him and Anya and then up at the Elite, who chuckled when he looked up at him.

This time, Marcus felt like he could not go on life anymore. He had lost many friends, he had lost his entire squad and now…now Anya, his girlfriend, someone he loved and cared for… She…she was gone! He swallowed hard, his mind unable to comprehend what had been revealed to him and going to the worst possible outcome.

She was dead!

"We killed her hours ago," the zealot Elite said as Marcus dropped the vial and holographic photo and buried his face in his hands. "Think of it as revenge for what you did to us yesterday. And now, as I believe I have told you, I intend to kill you," the zealot Elite activated his energy sword as if to put a setting point to his sentence. "But first…" he held out his other hand. "Give me what I'm looking for. Give me the data cord,"

Marcus sat in his crouched position, his face buried in his hands as the Elite waited impatiently for him to give him the data cord he wanted, but he did not seem to be weeping as he looked like he was going to do just seconds earlier. What was he doing?

Then, a noise came from Marcus…, but it was not whimpering. In fact, it did not sound like a sad noise at all. In fact, it sounded like…laughter!

Marcus rose his head up from his hands, which he rested on his legs. He was laughing! The Elite went wide-eyed with shock and a hidden anger. Why was he laughing?

"Why are you laughing?" the Elite barked at Marcus. "What is so funny?"

Marcus only laughed more. The Elite growled and took a step towards him, raising his energy sword, ready to attack him.

"I said: what is so funny?" the Elite barked at Marcus, his voice rising more with anger now.

Marcus lowered his laugh to a chuckle and looked at the Elite with a smile on his face.

"The data cord," he said. "I don't have it," the Elites' eyes went wide when he heard this. "You see, the _Axiom_ship has the data cord and It's long gone and far away from here now," he laughed again. "Face it, split-lip. You've lost,"

The Elite held his position, his eyes wide with shock. A hint of terror swept through him. That data cord was of utmost importance to the Covenant in their mission to complete the Great Journey. If what the Humans was telling him was true… The Elite swallowed hard as sweat began to trickle down his head. He had failed!

Then, anger seemed to explode inside him like a supernova and the Elite, furious, charged at Marcus, bringing up his energy sword. Marcus saw the threat coming and, at the last moment, threw himself into the legs of the Elite. The creature roared in surprise and fell over with a crash onto the ground, dropping his energy sword on the ground next to Marcus, who, after pushing the zealot off him, snatched it up and back away a few feet. The Elite shot up from the ground, anger blazing away in his eyes like an inferno.

"You will pay for that, you meddler!" he growled, his hands clenched into fists and shaking madly with fury.

"Then why don't you come and kill me, split-lip?" Marcus replied in a mocking tone.

That seemed to have pushed the buttons for the Elite. He roared and charged towards Marcus, bringing back his fists to swing at him. Marcus tensed himself and raised the energy sword. Both were ready to strike, though the question was: who would strike first?

The Elite swung his fist at Marcus, hitting him in the side of the head. Marcus yelled out in pain and fell to the ground. The Elite chuckled and watched as his enemy got up from the ground groaning. It was then Marcus realised something as he rubbed the back of his head with his hand. Where was the energy sword.

"Uuugh! Aarrgh!"

He looked up at the Elite and went wide-eyed to see the weapon embedded in the side of the Elites' chest. The Elite placed a hand on his chest and gasped for breath as he slumped down onto his knees, his eyes emptying of colour. He looked at Marcus in an unbelieving way as if to say: _"I cannot believe you beat me!" _before he fell forward onto the ground and moved no more.

Marcus breathed a sigh of relief and stood up and walked past the Elite, staring down at the body of the creature as a pool of purple blood began to form underneath it. Well, he was safe now. Now he just had to find a way of getting to the Ax-

He felt his foot hit something and he looked down to see the holographic photo holder on the ground. The vial lay smashed open and empty next to it, the Elite having stood on it. What was left of the hair that had been blown away by the gentle breeze in the airlay on the ground next to the vial.

At once, sadness and grief returned to Marcus and he slumped down onto his knees and picked up the holographic photo holder and the few strands of brown hair left. He breathed a heavy breath and tried desperately to hold back his tears as he held them in his hands like they were parts of her he was holding. It… it made him sick and sad all the way down to his heart. He loved her, and now she was dead. She was gone… Just like all the others.

An explosion from the CCS battle cruisers nearby lit up the sky a purple colour and Marcus looked towards them to see one of them with a glassing beam coming out of the bottom of it and growing in size, destroying everything it touched. There was no doubt that was why the zealot had ordered the infantry back for and this was what they were to do either when he returned or if he was killed. The Covenant on all of those ships had probably seen what had just happened and decided to destroy Marcus and the base completely, by glassing them.

Marcus sighed. He knew he could not escape and decided now he was to accept his fate. He looked once more back at the holographic photo and the brown hair that had once been part of the woman he loved and really cared for. A single tear rolled down his face, but it was a calm grief rather than a defeated grief.

"I love you Anya," he whispered.

Moments later, the glassing beam slammed into the building area, incinerating everyone and everything in it that had survived the fighting so far. Marcus was destroyed completely along with his bodysuit, his holographic photo of him and Anya, the few strands of her hair and his body. Everything.

Except for one thing. His and his squad's legacy. Their courage and their sacrifice in the face of defeat to allow others to escape. If they had lived, they would have known that their actions today had ensured the survival of Humanity through events that were to take place over the next few weeks, and with that legacy of courage and sacrifice, they also ensured that Humanity could rebuild


End file.
